In the 19th century, a Portuguese winemaker built his goats a three-storey tower because he thought they deserved a mountain

Grape vines and goats have never gotten along in close quarters. Goats eat everything the vine grows during an entire growing season, and a fence is only a temporary solution. That is why, in the 19th century, a grape grower at the Aveleda estate near Penafiel, Portugal, decided to try a different approach: rather than fighting his goats, he built a structure to house them. According to Wikipedia's entry on goat towers, Fernando Guedes da Silva da Fonseca erected a three-story stone tower known as Torre das Cabras, or Tower of the Goats. The structure featured an external spiral ramp that allowed his goats to climb straight into it. This architectural invention still stands at Aveleda and has unintentionally given rise to its own architectural tradition that has spread across four continents.

Why goats and vineyards never mixed

The goat does not see the vineyard as off-limits. Instead, the goat treats it as terrain to explore and climb, row by row. Fonseca did not build new walls; he built a folly, the kind of decorative garden structure European estate owners once favored, such as fake ruins or gazebos. His folly was designed to serve as a climbing platform for the goats.


Why goats actually need to climb

Goats are not good at standing still on flat ground, and there is a biological reason for this behavior. As noted in Translational Animal Science, goats may be inclined to seek high places because the behavior helped their wild ancestors escape predators on rough terrain. The study suggests that domesticated dairy goats retain this instinct even in safe, predator-free environments, with observations indicating that individual goats in commercial settings tend to use elevated platforms when given the opportunity. According to the journal Animals, goats living in understimulating flat areas with no opportunity to climb exhibit more stress-related repetitive behaviors.

The paper adds that this preference shows up in practical housing needs: the authors argue that goats’ rocky ancestral ecology helps explain why today’s dairy goats still seek elevation, hiding spaces and rough footing, and why ordinary indoor pens may fail to meet their behavioral needs. They also note that goats’ hooves are adapted for grip on steep terrain, reinforcing that climbing is not a quirk but part of the species’ basic design.

Rather than fighting his herd, Fernando Guedes da Silva da Fonseca decided to build a structure to contain and occupy them. He erected a stone tower known as Torre das Cabras (Tower of the Goats) to serve as a functional containment platform.

How one tower turned into a global trend

For more than a century, the Aveleda tower remained a local curiosity. However, all of that changed in 1981, when a South African winemaker named Charles Back visited Portugal, spotted the tower, and went home to build one at his Fairview Wine and Cheese Estate in Paarl. The tower became one of Fairview's best-known landmarks, and the company later named one of its wines 'Goats do Roam' after the goats there.

The idea soon spread to the United States. In 1998, Illinois farmer David Johnson constructed the 31-foot "Tower of Baaa" for his herd of 34 Saanen milk goats, creating a popular roadside attraction for passing drivers.

Similar goat towers, and variations built as tourist attractions, such as one at a downtown Memphis bar, have also been constructed in locations across Norway, Argentina, and Canada.

A few goat towers worth a road trip in the US

The tallest goat tower in the world is located at Hampton Roads Winery in Surry County, Virginia. Owners David and Diane Shelton built the 34-foot structure for their herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats after learning about the famous South African goat tower at Fairview, as documented by Surry County Tourism. Three generations of Nigerian Dwarf goats reside in the tower, which even has its own wine range named after it.

The takeaway

Goat towers are still rare around the globe. And that is why these uncommon structures naturally draw so much attention from visitors when encountered. However, the history of an early goat tower tells a different story; it was built for a practical purpose. Fonseca was likely addressing a practical vineyard problem rather than conducting a welfare experiment. He faced a practical problem: free-roaming goats in a vineyard, and his solution was not a fence but a mountain. Modern research suggests that climbing structures may benefit goats kept in agricultural environments.

Opportunities to climb may be valuable for animal welfare, as elevated structures allow goats to express natural climbing instincts. It also offered an early example of managing goats' instincts practically.