When I first went to stay with Peter and Ute on the ‘Quinta dos Sete Potos’ (Quinta of seven wells) I asked the meaning of the word, and their translation was ‘farm’, which was appropriate for the piece of land that they own – a 5 hectare block of vegetable and herb gardens (for both culinary and medicinal / cosmetic use) and fruit trees from which they are able to achieve a semi-self sufficient supply in the summer. Peter has a small tree ‘nursery’, and is introducing the Portuguese to the delights of feijoas (maybe someone needs to enlighten the Aussies in a similar manner?), and Ute produces a range of herbal products (cosmetics and rubs etc), preserves, vinegars and so on.
A few days later, I was reading an informational sign in the centre of the small town of Viseu which used the word ‘quinta’ in the Portuguese text, and translated this as ‘estate’ in the English version. In this particular context, ‘estate’ didn’t quite fit in the grand sense that we tend to use it: (I can’t remember the exact details, but the description was about the history of a small piece of land in the town).
Moving forward another few days, and I visited the ‘Quinta da Regaleira’ in Sintra (close to Lisbon). This could truly be described as an ‘estate’ of the grandest designs… with a gothic-style palace and gorgeous – but slightly quirky – gardens covering 4 hectares. Included in this fantasy-land was a series of tunnels from which you could travel underground from one part of the garden to another, and even into the basement of the palace itself! Strings of light - like Christmas decorations - lit the tunnels, and they were so cool I wished I could just stay down there... (it was stinking hot outside in the sun!)
Quinta also pops up in winery names and numerous other properties I have passed by in my Portugal tour.
My authoritative conclusion is that it is used as a generic term for a piece of real estate, or land, but is much more widely used than we use in English.
