After Porto we drove to the Douro Valley and had 2 full days to explore. It is a major wine region and the source of grapes for port, a very sweet dessert wine that has roughly 12 teaspoons of sugar per 5 ounce glass! They also make what they call “table wine” (or regular wine) that we wanted to taste. The river valley has steep hills covered with amazing terraces that have been built up over hundreds of years. We stayed at a small, family run, country house that’s part of a working winery. We enjoyed their home cooked family style breakfasts, and dinners with wine pairings from their winery. Since we needed to recover from our sugar infused port tasting in Porto, we decided to do one day of exploring and one day of wine tasting.
Incredible Views
We drove around and enjoyed the amazing views of the Douro Valley.
Lamego Cathedral
Santuário de Nossa Senhora dos Remédios (Sanctuary of our Lady of Remedies) sits above Lamego and has an incredible set of stairs with azulejo tiled balconies leading from the cathedral down into town. Of course we had to venture all the way to the bottom. We counted almost 700 stairs on the way back up, quite a workout!
On the River
We took a boat trip up river from Pinhão. It was a relaxing way to enjoy the valley. They also gave us a glass of port along the way.
Wonderful Wine Tasting
Our first wine tasting stop was Quinta do Jalloto Family Vineyards. It was a narrow and windy drive to get there, but the food, wine flight, and views were excellent and worth the effort.
Our next stop was Quinta da Foz, a boutique winery that sells only from their winery. We didn’t have a reservation but they graciously added us to a small, 12 person tour that was about to start. They still make wines the old fashion way: men stomp the grapes with their feet in large granite basins built hundreds of years ago (upper left photo) while listening to folk (accordion) music and drinking wine. In the lower right picture of the wine barrel there is a small door that a man crawls into every few years to clean it….what a smelly and difficult job.
Port Tasting Again, Seriously?
As the day was winding down we decided to try one more winery. Most wineries make both table wine and port, however after we got to this winery we found out they only make port. We persevered and shared a glass of white port and a glass of red port to wrap up the day. It was in a beautiful side valley of the Douro River Valley and we were the only ones there.
The Journey Continues
The Douro Valley is stunning and we found the table wines they make are great; the port was good too but just overly sweet for us. Our stay at the family winery was fun and included meeting many interesting people from Portugal and Europe. Overall a great stop on our journey.
For our next stop we left Portugal and drove to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, since it was so close. But that is a story for another blog…
So enjoy ‘catching up’ with your activities via these blogs.
I adore the dry ports they make. So tasty. Looks like you two had fun.