ESTREMOZ MARBLE or ROSA PORTUGAL – All you need to know

Today we bring you a hot topic that many often pops up in discussions amongst people working on the marble industry: What are the main differences between Estremoz Marble and Rosa Portugal Marble?

On todays article we address this topic and clarify you on everything you need to know next time you will need to buy this amazing natural stone.

A Marble name

With us at Gold Stone being one of the major players of the Portuguese marble industry regarding the import and export of Estremoz Marble, we are very often faced with many different names for the same stone.

By the way, most of the times marble names do not differ only from market to market, but within different companies of the same country/region.

When an overseas customer approach us and is not fully familiar with our product, the wide range of names given to it can be very different.

COMMON NAMES FOR ESTREMOZ MARBLE

Let me share with you some names that worldwide customers use when they approach us looking for Portuguese marble:

• Portuguese marble
• White Portugallo
• Rosa Portugal
• Rosa Portugallo
• Pardais marble
• Estremoz marble
• White pardais
• Portugal white

So what is actually the main differences between all these names, or to be more precise, all these stones?

In order to clarify you lets give you some quick historic background.

MARBLE IN PORTUGAL

Portugal is a country well rich in mineral resources, specially on what regards to marble. The largest deposits of this natural stone are located on the Southest region of the country, namely Alentejo.

The extraction is concentrated in the municipality of Vila Viçosa and Borba, however it all started many years ago on the neighbor city of Estremoz, as referenced by Primeira Pedra.

The Estremoz Marble has been explored since the days that the Iberian Peninsula was integrated on the Roman Empire. Many large National Monuments were confirmed to be built with this natural stone with recent analysis to the facade stones.

And since Portuguese sailors started to explore the world on the Discovery Age, our marble started to spread across the entire globe as it was largely used as an ornament stone by the Portuguese colonies.

AN UNIQUE MARBLE

Quickly our marble was admired by its mechanical properties. Very crystalline, very good flexural and compression strength, strong abrasion resistance and a world reference for low open porosity, thus low water absorption.

But during the early days what impressed the most, was its pink colored tones. A never seen marble on a world not – yet – globalized at all. Quickly this stone started to be known as Rosa Portugallo, which means in English “Pink Portugal”.

ESTREMOZ MARBLE

Over the years our Portuguese stone become very famous and the worldwide demand for it just soared! The national sector evolved and the extraction got more intense.

The more the quarries were explored in the Estremoz area, the more was found about the Portuguese marble. The Estremoz deposit was found to have an unique diversity of marble, where the morphology evolves across its extension, allowing nowadays to extract a wide range of colors, all with the same good mechanical properties:

• Estremoz White – white marble
• Blue Lagoon – blue marble
• Ruivina – black marble
• Black Sparrow – black and white marble
• Rosa Portugal – pink marble
• Cream Marble – beige marble
• Tiger Skin – white marble with blue veins

CONCLUSION ABOUT ESTREMOZ MARBLE

So when someone today talks about Rosa Portugal Marble you need to be very careful. Very often happens that we are asked for a quotation and we send prices for pink marble, and what the customer really wants is white marble for example. So you really need to specify the type of marble you are looking for.

Same happens when someone is looking for Estremoz Marble. It can be any of the types mentioned above.

So Rosa Portugal and Estremoz Marble are commonly referred for the same stone, since Rosa Portugal is the name that has remained immortal for centuries.

If you are searching to import Portuguese Marble (aka Rosa Portugal or Estremoz Marble) please contact us once we do extract all the finest marble types mentioned on this article and are very happy to support you on your needs and projects.

YOUR PROJECTS, OUR STONES.