When we first visited the Quinta do Vale cellar, a third of its south wall lay on the ground. The owners expected us to replace it with new stone. Instead, we counted the old.
A numbering system
Each stone was photographed, given a painted number and logged on a drawing of the wall as we believed it had stood. The work took two people eleven weeks.
Our mason, Sr. Armando Pires, then rebuilt the wall dry, without mortar on its outer face, exactly as it had been built in 1764.
The new wall is not a copy of the old wall. It is the old wall.
What we learned
Reuse is slower than new construction and slightly more expensive in labour. It is far cheaper in carbon, and it keeps the colour of two centuries of weather.
