page_title: Goat tower
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Goat tower / History
caption_attribution_description: English: dwarf goat tower at Quinta da Aveleda, Penafiel, Portugal
context_page_description: A goat tower is a multi-story decorative goat house, modeled on a European garden folly, an early example of which was built in Portugal in the 19th century. The first goat tower was built at Aveleda, a winery in Portugal's Vinho Verde region. Since 1981, several other goat towers have been built in South Africa, Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Argentina; these include three at other wineries. The towers typically are multi-story with climbing ramps spiralling the exterior and often become tourist attractions.
context_section_description: The first goat tower was built in Portugal in the 19th century and modeled on a garden folly. Known as Torre das Cabras (Tower of the Goats), it was built by Fernando Guedes da Silva da Fonseca (1871–1946) at Aveleda, near Penafiel, one of the oldest wineries in the Vinho Verde region of  Portugal. The tower is three stories with stone walls and a rightward (climbing counter-clockwise) spiral wooden ramp and is one of several follies on the winery's estate for which their Follies label is named. Each of the follies, which in addition to the Torre das Cabras include the Manuelino-style Window, the Tea House, the Four Sisters Fountain, and the Guard House, is represented on one of the winery's labels.
  According to Francisco Guedes Almeida, a member of the 13th generation of the Guedes family to own the winery, the goat tower and the estate's other follies are "artistic daydreams with no functional explanation" built by various of his ancestors, one of whom "thought the goats did not belong to the plains ... so they built the goat tower, so they could have a mountain." The tower symbolizes fertility and abundance.
  According to Almeida, he was travelling in South Africa and stumbled across another goat tower and called an uncle to tell him about it. His uncle told him, "You're in Fairview," and related a story of a 1960s visit from a winemaker from South Africa's Fairview Winery who had seen the Aveleda goat tower, was inspired by it, and wrote to the Guedes family to ask permission to build one.
caption: Torre das Cabras at Aveleda, near Penafiel, Portugal
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