“Breathing, for over 20 years, the perfumed atmosphere of our southern climate and drinking, all this time, from the font itself, the predilection of British tables, the genuine Port Wine – that nectar, the aroma of which even more than that of our atmosphere, is pleasing to English pituitaries, Mr. Richard Whitestone could not, or rather, these influences with all the other bewitching attractions of our land, had not yet managed to achieve from Mr. Richard Whitestone two important results: the adopting of the habits of the peninsula life against which he always reacted with the whole inflexibility of his British fibres and respect for Portuguese grammar...”
(IN: Júlio Dinis – An English Family)

Whoever crosses the D. Luís I Bridge between Oporto and Gaia through the almost perpetual and mysterious mist that shrouds the houses down below next to the Riverbank area feels that he is on the way to meet himself a little more. A return to the origins of what it means to be genuinely Portuguese. The green and red of our flag, mirrored in the rough green of the terraced slopes of the Douro River and in the red of the grape trodden and turned into wine. Wine born out of the sweat of a people with genuine expressions and warm smiles, who in the presses of life transforms the harvested grape with effort into a refined, unique wine that is appreciated all over the world. A wine that smells of hugs of reencounter and of chats around the fireside with friends and that when it achieves a certain haughtiness and refinement becomes the perfect nectar of the gods to seal business deals on the highest level of politics and high finance throughout the world.

The Port Wine Cellars are thus an inevitable landmark in our history and are so well portrayed in Júlio Dinis’s work “Uma Família Inglesa”. 

The Port Wine Demarcated Region is traditionally divided into three sub-regions: the Lower Corgo, the Upper Corgo and the Upper Douro, having been established as such by the Marquis of Pombal in 1756, with the intention of avoiding fraud through wines made with grapes from other regions.

Since then the wine has been aged in the 15 cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia and transported until 1965 on the quaint Rabelo boats, which still today lie at anchor on the banks of the Douro providing a historical witness to their golden age when they used to bring down the grapes from the estates to the warehouses during the spring period.

Nowadays the cellars can be visited, with the possibility of tasting the famous nectar. Among these we may highlight Caves Taylor’s founded in 1693 (www.taylor.pt), belonging to one of the oldest exporting companies, Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman and which still today maintains a family and rustic atmosphere in its cellars; Caves Ferreira (www.sogrape.pt) made eternal due to the unheard-of spirit of enterprise at the time of being born in the hands of a woman: the historical figure Ferreirinha – Dona Antonia Adelaide Ferreira; Caves Ramos Pinto (www.ramospinto.pt) founded by Adriano Ramos Pinto in 1909 or the Caves da Real Companhia Velha (www.realcompanhiavelha.pt), founded in 1756 by King Dom José I as a result of the Decree by the Marquis of Pombal that set out the Douro Wine Region.

Port Wine is distinguished due to its particular characteristics: diversity of types, intensity of aroma and taste, variety of colours, diversified range of sweetness and high alcoholic content (generally between 19 and 22% vol.).

In order to be a true connoisseur of Port Wine one has to a priori be able to distinguish between a Tawny and a Ruby. While the Ruby is a young, full-bodied wine with a strong flavour, the colour of which is similar to the precious stone called ruby, and has an ageing process with little or no oxidation (normally three years in wooden barrels), the Tawny is a wine obtained from lots of different wines, normally aged three years old and matured in vats. Thus they do not have the characteristics of ageing in oak. During the ageing process there are many transfers in order to force the oxidation process and grant a golden tone to the wine. For the most demanding connoisseurs and experts on wine, Port Wine may also have other names and types according to the kind of ageing:



Added to enology and to gastronomic pleasure, the Douro Demarcated Region offers incomparable landscape beauty, with stunning views, where the green and the gold of the land mixes into the blue of the River Douro wending its way through the hills.

On the Port Wine Route many routes may be planned out according to the traveller’s taste: the wine and gastronomy route, riverboat trips on the Douro, journeys to the past on the steam train or the route of the six wine-producing villages of the romantic Douro: Barcos, Favaios, Provesende, Salzedas, Trevões and Ucanha, each with a different story to tell, based on memories in which the grape, the harvest and the wine-pressing are main characters and where we may be invited to participate in a harvest or in a vine-stripping. The natural landscape reminds one of the Scandinavian fiords due to its impressive stillness, yet it takes on an unparalleled beauty when it acquires different tones of colours according to the time of the year, in a unique beauty, not of eternal snows, but of almond trees in blossom waving in the breeze.



In : http://www.infovini.com/

Whether it is for a weekend or for a longer holiday period, the Port Wine Route is something that should be done at least once in a lifetime. The supply of places to stay is diversified, raning from rural dwellings to fine hotels.



Village tourism is becoming more and more developed and popular, and is characterized by a set of lodging and entertainment services for tourists in family-run businesses on a paid basis in rural areas.

An example of village tourism is CASA CIMEIRA (www.casacimeira-douro.com), in Valença do Douro, which is set in the middle of the tourist area of the Douro Region, and is a restored house that is about 200 years old, known for its hospitality, family welcome and pleasantness.

The house, located in the heart of the Douro Wine and Romantic Douro regions, in the village of Valença do Douro between Tabuaço, Pinhão and Peso da Régua, is outstanding in its wonderful location, from which one has an all-round view of the undulating landscapes of the wine furrows, at the bottom of which, in a funnel, there is the magnificent River Douro winding at the bottom of the slopes.

One may suggest either a boat trip from Pinhão to Peso da Régua or the train ride from Oporto and Tua. A visit to Lamego, in order to appreciate the impressive staircase and visit the church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios. São João da Pesqueira and the surrounding villages, with walks, whether organised or not.

Another alternative to enjoy on those very special moments in our lives, but much more expensive, is the recently-created Douro Palace Hotel Resort & SPA (http://www.douropalace.com) located in Baião, at the Quinta de S. João, in Santa Cruz do Douro.

And this Port Wine Route here drawn up can only be complete by ending with the quoting of an excerpt from a song written by a doctor-singer whose talent was stolen by premature death, but who left us an immense legacy, portraying that which is genuine in the Portuguese people:

“First the range sown from farm to farm
On the slopes of promise
Then the green gained or lost
When the rain falls fast

Then is born the fruit as small
As the grapes of joy
And in the harvest go the baskets
Laden with the daily bread

Sweat of the brow to tread and see
The must in the presses
Then carefully is made the dream
Generously fermented wine

And down the golden river goes the shine
On the barges of a lifetime
And to the world go bottles
From a proud people
Port Wine I will serve you in this chalice
The support of friendship in Portugal
Is the comfort of a love taken slowly
That we see as will in Portugal

If we want to spill our meanness
If we can be friends this time
It isn’t champagne that works for us
Nor anyone who is our equal
Because the wine is Portuguese“
Carlos Paião

 

Paula Saraiva
psaraiva@fm.ul.pt
Advanced Training Institute
(+351) 217985107

 

Bibliography:
DINIS, Júlio, pseud.
Uma família inglesa : cenas da vida do Porto / Júlio Dinis. – New edition, in accord with 3rd update in script. - Porto : A. R. da Cruz Coutinho, 1875. - 367, [1] p. ; 19 cm http://purl.pt/326

The following sites were consulted and images used from them:
http://www.aldeiasvinhateiras.pt/
http://www.infovini.pt
http://www.rvp.pt
http://www.casacimeira-douro.com
http://www.douropalace.com/