Portugal – Chasing The Wind

The Douro Valley is the birth place of port wine, a rich and complex ‘sweet juice’ that goes great after dinner on its own or with dessert. Who doesn’t love port wine? Visiting the valley and tasting port have been on our list for years, we finally made it in February.

Our plan was one day at the Douro Valley and two days in Porto. Three days were not long barely enough for us to visit the places we had wanted to go. We decided to stay at the heart of the Douro, a little town called Pinhão, which was about two-hour drive from Porto.

To maximize our experience, we splurged on the fancy classic hotel at Pinhão, the Vintage House Hotel. Our balcony was open to the Douro river.

From the hill top of Pinhão, Douro Valley looking down on our hotel the Vintage House Hotel

A river cruise was just a step away from the hotel. In February, there is only short cruise–one hour navigating around Pinhão, the most scenic part of the Douro River. The long version lasts for seven hours, operates daily from March to November between Porto and Pinhão. In my opinion, this short ride gave a taste of the cruise, enough for us because it all looked the same after a while.

It was orange season, all kinds of citrus fruits were there await, begging to be tasted and free for hotel guests. The orange and grapefruit were ones of the sweetest and freshest I’d tasted. My favorite among the five kinds of citrus there was kumquat. We are having a tough time to adjust our taste buds to supermarket fruits now.

Do you know the Douro river is 550 mile long, starting from Spain? It is called Duero in Spain. We happen to love red wine from the Douro, both of Spain and Portugal. The longer part of the river, about 350 miles, is in Portugal. The river runs west, pours to the Atlantic ocean at Porto. The grapes are harvested in the fall, the wine spends the first winter in the valley, then the barrels are floated downstream to Porto in the spring to be aged in the cellars because the valley is too hot for storage in the summer months.

350 miles of the Douro River is within the border of Portugal

The deep in the Douro setting gave us advantage to visit quintas out of the way from the main road. A quinta is a farm that produces port and table wine. Our best tasting experience in the valley was at the Quinta do Panascal.

Different from the other quintas we visited, the tour at the Quinta da Panascal was self guided. We were given a recorded audio guide, then wondered off freely to explore the winery. This Quinta produces Fonseca wine, which is owned by Taylor.

We chatted with the manager, and he pointed to the olive trees scattering all over the winery. Actually the olive oil industry goes much longer the wine industry in Douro. I did pick up hint of olive on the wine tasting that followed. The power of suggestion? 🙂

Wine tasting was followed after the tour. There are basically three types of port wines: the ruby port, the downy port and the vintage port. There are six grape varieties making up the majority of the port, they are Tinta Amarela, Tinto Cão, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz (also called Tempranillo in Spain), Touriga Francesa (the most widely planted) and Touriga Nacional (the most famous Portugal grape). Check out this article for further reading.

Fonseca Siroco White Port N.V. 3***
Fonseca Bin 27 Finest Reserve Port NV 4****
Fonseca 10 year Old Tawny Port 4.5****

Ten euros for the tour and wine tasting. The above three wines were included in the tasting. Actually most of the quintas offer a similar program, an hour long tour following by a tasting of 3-4 wines for 10 euros.

Of all the port wine, I can’t say which is better since they were all tasty to me. If I have to list my preference, then first is tawny port, the ruby, finally white port. Can’t say much about the expensive vintage port since we didn’t taste much. However we did taste a 1977-vintage port at Porto which I’ll write about at the next blog!

The best Quinta for photograph got to be the fabulous Sandeman’s Quinta do Seixo. Unfortunately we were there during their lunch break, the tasting room was closed for two hours. However, we made it up tasting Sandeman at Porto later.

The ride from Douro Valley to Porto was really beautiful especially the segment from Pinhão to Peso da Régua. In the 70s a series of dams were built along the Douro to tame the water. Because of the dams, the water was so calm, the mirror-like reflection was enchanting.

Three shots of city of Peso da Régua:

After thoughts:

It was preferable to rent a car to the Douro Valley, if possible. Otherwise a convenient train can take you to the valley from Porto. With a car we were not limited to the quintas of walking distance around the station, we could explore deep into the valley.

A small memorial at the top hill of Pinhão

Most of the quintas at the valley were informal, economic and down to the earth, in comparison with our tasting experiences at the Napa Valley which were much pricier and more upscale in most wineries. It was perfect okay to just pull into any quinta. However coming in the light season, we missed a couple of tasting because of lunch break and close. So make sure to call ahead to get their tasting hours if you have one on the must-have list.

It turned out good for us to visit the valley first, then to Porto. Because we could make up the tasting we missed at the valley. Actually you can find tasting of almost every port wine at Porto where port wine ages up to decades at the cellars here after transported out of the valley.

Thank you for reading this far, please check out our visit to Porto, too!

Since we are staying at home in this special time, I’ve found myself have more time praying and reading. I have also more day dreaming, looking through travel photos to remember the places where I don’t mind to be isolated for a while. The first one comes to mind is Obidos, Portugal.

A small town an hour north of Lisbon, Obidos is a jewel sitting on atop a hill, enclosed by 45-ft tall walls which were constructed in 14th century. The terracotta roofing and yellow and blue accented white-paint houses are the signature charm of the town. It was a wedding gift from King Dinis to his bride Isabel in 1282. What a gift! He scored high on the romantic side!

Obidos is pretty yet very touristy, ideally to visit in the morning or evening to avoid crowds. We did in the morning with the town almost all to ourselves.

It is impossible to get lost in Obidos, from the city gate to the castle (Pousada), the main road is pretty straightforward, lots of shops and restaurants along the way. The churches of St. Mary (left) and St. Peter (right) are right in the middle of the attraction.

We saw stairs access to the walls at the beginning of main road near the city gate as well as at the end of the road by the castle. The walls and the views were also the main attractions of the town in my opinion. Lots of photo opportunities if you like taking pictures, both looking inside and outside, along the walls. Since I am afraid of height, it took me a while to walk up to and around the 45-ft tall walls, but the views were totally worth the scare.

It was orange season in the middle of February. There were different kinds of citrus all over the town, we saw trees of lemon, orange and mandarin. When gentle breeze mixed citrus scent filled the air, we felt like carrying a bouquet walking in citrus forest. This sensation reminded me a similar experience in another European city, Seville in southern Spain. We were there in the early spring, in March 2013, another orange season. Seville is also famed for orange trees and fruits, and everything else orange, such as orange marmalade and orange perfume. Lucky for me, I LOVE oranges!!

If you like shopping, there are shops and stores dotted along the street, happy to assist tourists. We took home three unique gifts of Portugal: cork tray, blue tiles and cans of cod fish (Bacalhau). We got the cork tray from Lisbon, the blue tiles from Coimbra. One of the well-known can fish company is Comur Conserveira de Portugal.

We decided to pick a different route back to the gate from the castle. A smaller path away from the main street, closer to the walls. It turned out to be an even better choice. It was quieter, with lesser crowd. Each corner we turned , we were welcomed with tranquility and beauty.