I had a few days in Porto after completing the Portuguese Camino Coastal Route and was contemplating how to make the most of my time in the city. I saw the Duoro Valley – the wine region near Porto – was on many “must do” lists for visitors in the area, but the area seemed too far for the limited time I had left in Porto. After a bit of research, I found an amazing Duoro Valley Wine tour starting and ending in Porto that visits two distinct wine regions around the Duoro valley. The tour included lunch, 11 different wine tastings, a river cruise as well as a guide who was also a certified level 3 sommelier.
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I was sold. I booked the tour for 9:30am the next day. Incidentally most tours tend to leave around 8am – so another reason for booking this particular tour was that it left at a slightly later time, so I could sleep in a little.
The tour has a pickup point in the Downtown Porto tourist district, so that it is easy for most individuals to get to in the morning. The pickup point for my tour was the Teatro Sa da Bandeira. It was an ideal pickup place, and by time I got to the pickup point, I could already see a group of tourists milling about ready to leave on the tour.
As we approached 9:30am, our guide – Jorge, a sommelier and our guide for the day – checked us in and let us onto our spacious air-conditioned tour bus.
The drive from Porto to the Duoro Valley is about 1 hour and 45 minutes – but about half of the time was actually spent listening to our guide tell us more about Portugal and its wine region to prepare us for the day – which helped pass the driving time very quickly.
Jorge was an excellent guide who started off the day telling us about the Douro Valley and the Portuguese wine industry as our transport towards the valley went underway. An amazing story-teller who clearly has a passion for his work with tourists as well as pride for his country; Jorge did an excellent job not only conveying information about the region to us, but also interjecting many points of humor into his storytelling.
The wineries that we were visiting were family-run, and Jorge seemed to know the owners of the two wineries were visiting personally. He even poked fun of the owner of the first winery, saying that the owner – Manuel – was his cousin, and he basically worked for him like a slave while Manuel just relaxed with his dogs at the winery living a kind of Portuguese Richard Branson kind of life.
Whether Jorge was really related to the winery owner – I am not certain – but when we arrived at the winery, Jorge did chat and joke with Manuel with a sense of familiarity that would suggest a family tie or at least an old friendship.
For the record, Manuel did in fact look like a Portuguese Richard Branson with flowing white locks and a joie de vivre in his step that suggested he lived a pretty awesome life hanging about his beautiful winery. At some point we saw him leaving the property with some friends in a open-top convertible playing Portuguese rap music – the guy was absolutely living his best life.
Manuel’s winery was called “Quinta da Bela” and it was absolutely stunning. After enjoying a delicious welcome drink of chilled tawny port while enjoying the panoramic views of the region from the winery’s hilltop perch, wandering around the beautiful grounds, and petting the 3 super-friendly dogs. We were invited to sit down to watch a fire-water opening of a bottle of vintage ruby port.
Because vintage ports were often aged for a long period of time; using the fire-water method to cut the top of the bottle off in order to serve the port was the best way to ensure the wine was not spoiled by cork that might crumble into the bottle.
Jorge showed us how the metal tongs had to be heated until the metal was red, and then the neck of the bottle – just above where the cork ended was marked with the tongs. Once the bottle was scored, cold water was poured on it and a slight “click” was heard which signified that the glass has been cut by the thermal shock of the cold water hitting the hot score mark. Jorge then carefully pulled out the cork, and served us the delicious port.
After our vintage port tasting, we were ushered into the air-conditioned dining room for lunch. The dining hall was nothing short of spectacular. Floor to ceiling windows show-cased unimaginable views of the Duoro Valley while we remained comfortable within the air-conditioned room. Each setting had two wine glasses and a water glass, and we were each served a red and white wine that kept flowing throughout the lunch service.
There was delicious bread, olives and olive oil at the table, and our first course was a delicious vegetable soup. After the soup we were served a roast pork along with vegetables and potatoes (there was a fish and vegetarian option available as well); and for desert – a rich apple-port cake, served with an additional glass of delicious tawny port.
After lunch, we headed for our Duoro river cruise. Our group was divided into two luxurious boats (that had covered decks as well as washrooms), and unlimited sparkling wine was served to us throughout the 1 hour river cruise featuring closeup views of the valley from the riverside prospective. The breeze wafting through the boat as we drifted luxuriantly with never empty champagne flutes along the river was simply fantastic.
We headed towards the 2nd and last winery stop of the day after the river cruise. The Quinta do Baija Winery is located about 1 hour away from Porto, and has a focus on the famous Vinho Verdes of Portugal.
Quinta do Baija is a long-standing family run winery. The wine-maker, Miguel, a man in his 50s talked and joked a little bit about how he had to fight his father – a very traditional wine maker – to adopt new methods in order to produce what he felt would be superior wines. He never won the wine-making fight with his father, and eventually went on to open two restaurants in Porto. Seemingly out of exasperation from not having as much say as he would like in the creative process of wine making.
Eventually however, his father retired in 2020, and Miguel was finally able to implement his vision of reimagining the wine making process at the winery. He replaced the wood barrel process with a high-tech steel vat process – which simplified the cleaning and sanitation process. Where it would normally take months to clean and sanitize the wood barrels that his father preferred, the steel vats could be cleaned in a matter of hours. Another reason for switching from wood barrels to steel vats is because Vinho Verdes did not need the flavour of the wood, and the cleaner steel vats would allow the natural fresher notes of the Vinho Verdes to shine rather than be masked by wood notes.
Miguel was so committed to the transformation of the family winery that he actually stopped wine production for 3 years in order to perfect the process. In the end, the wines that we tasted, a white vinho verde, a rose vinho verde and a deep ruby red, were truly spectacular wines. Miguel suggested his incredibly deep red was the “Ferrari” of all his wines – I could not agree more! It was one of the most unique red wines I have tasted, so save room in your luggage for a bottle of this to bring home!
Once we finished up at Miguel’s winery, we loaded back onto the bus towards Porto. We were dropped off where we were picked up in Downtown Porto and given a warm send-off by Jorge.
It was an absolutely spectacular day of otherworldly vistas, bottomless wine, and outstanding/hilarious commentary. I would 10/10 recommend this experience to anyone visiting Porto.
