Saturday was spent exploring a tiny part of Douro Valley, because we couldn’t go to Porto and not sample port. We’d prebooked a couple of things the day before — the most important being lunch — and I drove us out to this internationally recognised wine region. The drive was a good one, a mix of motorways and winding country roads along the sides of mountains. The country roads gave an excellent view of the valley.
First stop was Quinta do Bomfim, a port producer owned by Symington’s. Symington’s owns 27 vineyards throughout the Douro Valley, which has about three main regions within it, typified by varieties in rainfall, temperature, soil etc. Summers gets to 50°C which puts it in the “hell no” category. Fortunately, it was only warm when we were there.
We did a tour, learning a bit about the low yields, the long processes, the “small company” spin that a monopoly puts on things. Goes to show that to survive in such conditions you need to expand and costs come down when you can streamline across multiple properties. The port was good though. We each did a tasting, three of us going for Dow’s port (ruby and tawny) which Quinta do Bomfim produces for, while Julian went for the wine.
One of the things that stood out from the tour was the technological developments involved, particularly around crushing the grapes. Apparently, there’s something unique about using humans to crush grapes, something about the temperature and the uneven pressure that had to be replicated in the machines. It couldn’t just be a flat crush, it needed to be varied and “human-like”, which they’ve now done. One of their vineyards still produces port the old fashioned way.
After this winery, we went across the bridge to another. We didn’t have a tasting booking, but you could just buy glasses of wine. I was already at my limit after three glasses of port so Glen and I sat that one out, while Simon and Julian sampled the local produce. Meanwhile, I’d stepped outside to make a phone call and after it was finished was asked by a French couple, in French, if tastings were available and whether it was just wine or port as well. I said they had port and they looked at me expectantly. “Je ne travaille pas ici,” I said and they looked very apologetic. This didn’t deter them from asking me again, once we were all inside a few minutes later, whether they served port… I directed them to where they wanted to go.
Dissatisfied with the wine Simon and Julian tried, I drove us to lunch in a village a half hour away. The restaurant, Aneto and Table, had popped up as a recommended restaurant on a blog I stumbled across and they’d had a table for Saturday lunch. It was a small place but had a good vibe and we gorged yet again. The waitress even had to recommend we stop ordering as we’d already requested a lot (we thought the “tapas” list was “tapas” size but they were actually full-sized).
We ate a lot of very good food and had some wine and chatted and then walked it off by going over the pedestrian bridge to the other side of the river. On the way back to the car I bought a 2 kg box of cherries for €5 off the back of a truck. I think I had about 20 all up; Julian and Glen gorged and I worried we’d have to make an emergency stop somewhere…
All up a very good day in Douro Valley.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?