Time-traveling Up Portugal’s Douro Valley.
The poet Alexander Pope once wrote the proper study of mankind is man. But I think wine is also an interesting place to start.
I had a chance to put that theory to the test on a recent visit to Portugal. Just up the Douro River from my hotel in the city of Porto lay the world’s oldest demarcated wine producing region, a place where the inhabitants have been hammering the steep, rocky slopes into vineyards since the days of the Romans.
You can get an informative taste of the Douro Valley’s famous product by simply walking across the bridge from your hotel in Porto. The area along the opposite riverbank is called Vila Nova de Gaia. It’s filled with “lodges” representing the great port wine producers.
The lodges are more than just tasting rooms. They’re actually warehouses stacked floor to ceiling with wine barrels. The Vila Nova de Gaia has had a symbiotic relationship with the Douro Valley for generations. The grapes are grown in the unique terroir of the valley, then the wine is shipped downriver to age in the cooler, damper climate at the mouth of the river. For most of the region’s history the wine arrived on flat-bottomed boats known as barcos rabelos, specially designed to survive the wilder stretches of the journey down the Douro.
Now the wine travels rather less romantically in tanker trucks, but each of the big port houses still has a ceremonial rebelo boat anchored along the bank of the Douro (the boats are raced each year on St. John’s Day). The names fluttering from the masts of the rabelos and spelled out in big wooden letters over the lodges sound decidedly British. Graham’s. Taylor’s. Cockburn’s. Stop into any one of them and you’ll get a tour of the barrels aging in the warehouse and a quick lesson in the long history of port wine. A few hundred years ago English wine merchants found their access to French wine cut off by one of the frequent wars between the two countries, and turned instead to Portugal. At first they imported wines from the coast. Then they discovered the big, sweet vintages coming from the valley of the Douro River. They set up shop in Porto at the mouth of the river and the rest, as they say, is history.
At the end of the tour the visitor is rewarded with a sampling of port wine in a handful of its many variations. As you sit in the garden tasting an Aged Tawny or Late Bottled Vintage you can’t help but notice the history swirling in the glass. That’s what makes wine such a fascinating glimpse into humanity. It’s impossible to separate what you’re drinking from the geography and the culture that gave it birth.
A trip through the lodges and their tasting rooms is as deep into the region’s viticulture as many tourists venture. For me it was only the beginning. I was headed to the source of these intriguing wines.
The next morning my wife and I were picked up by a company named Douro Exclusive for a daylong trip into the valley itself.
The company is the brainchild of Ana and Marco, who grew up in the Douro Valley and wanted to find a way to give visitors a deeper connection to the area’s culture and heritage than the big tour companies were able to offer.
With Ana at the wheel, the Douro Exclusive van takes us over a low range of mountains. The tall hills effectively block the cool, wet weather coming off the Atlantic. When we reach the other side the climate is hot, dry and Mediterranean. Ideal for growing the sugar laden grapes that give port wine its sweet, complex character. Ana tells us that once we enter the valley it’s time to forget everything we think we know about wine. More than 200 grape varietals grow here. Almost none have names I know. The valley’s ability to grow grapes on the forbiddingly steep, rocky hillsides rising up from the Douro River has been almost entirely created by humans, working by hand.
Our first stop is the small vineyard of a grower named Fernando. He grows grapes on vines his grandfather planted, and makes his wines in the cellar of a 17th century farmhouse. The tour of the vineyard takes about as long as you need to look right, and then look left. Like many of the vineyards in the valley it’s planted with a mix of different grapes. He shows us an old framed document that lists each of the 20 varietals growing alongside one another. One of the Portuguese names translates as Choking Dog. The rest are equally unfamiliar to my ears.
Fernando makes his wines in a large, cool cellar under the old farmhouse. The first thing you notice when you enter is the row of large granite vats. This is where the grapes are still trodden by foot. As Fernando describes the process, treading the grapes is not the juice-soaked party you might picture. He and a few helpers link arms and step methodically, shoulder-to-shoulder, across the vat to slowly and precisely crush the grapes. It takes about four hours. It’s exhausting work.
Next to the farmhouse is a newly built tasting house, with stunning views of the vineyards climbing the surrounding hillsides. First we sample what Fernando calls table wine. To my uneducated brain it’s simply wine. There’s a crisp and refreshing dry white. Then a 2014 red, which Fernando makes exclusively for a group of friends spread out across Europe and America. A few are well-known designers and artists, and they take turns creating the labels. The wine is quite nice, but the red that follows is even better. It’s an older, more traditional style blended the way Fernando’s grandfather taught him to make red wine. I’m glad it hasn’t been lost to history.
Then comes the port, which is made by an entirely different method. Instead of fermenting the grapes until the natural sugars are turned into alcohol, the process is stopped at roughly its halfway point by pouring freshly distilled brandy into the juice. The remaining sugar gives port wines their sweet character. The brandy fortifies the alcohol content, which results in a wine best enjoyed in a small glass.
First we’re poured a 2011 Vintage Ruby made at a neighboring vineyard. Vintage Port is made from only the best grapes in the best years, and aged in bottles. The 2011 we taste is a young vintage, but is already considered one of the best in memory. And port has a long memory. Our guide Ana tells us that in 50 years the 2011 may rival the famous 1963 vintage. Given how good it already tastes I have a hard time imagining there’d be any left in 50 years.
Ruby is one broad classification of port. The other is Tawny, which spends its time aging in wood instead of glass. Over the years this gives it a lighter amber color and rich, mellow character. The Tawny Fernando brings us is a generous treat. He describes it as his grandfather’s legacy. It’s the port his family has been putting up for three generations, and it comes straight out of the oak cask in his cellar. The wine in the cask averages 35 years old.
Ana explains that in the valley the locals keep a cask like this for their own enjoyment. “We in the valley don’t call the wine we save for ourselves porto,” she tells us. It’s called Vino Fino, or Fine Wine. Or, in a term that has broader meaning, “Generous Wine.” Drinking this rare treat is a privilege that isn’t lost on me.
Lunch is red mullet at the Michelin-listed DOC restaurant, accompanied by white and rosé wines, a 2011 Vintage Ruby Port, and a pretty view of the river. The talk turns to history. The original kings of Portugal were descended from a crusading French knight named Henry of Burgundy. They kept a connection to that famous French wine growing region, and brought monks down from Burgundy to restore the ancient Roman viniculture. It was an immense engineering project, working by hand to build the terraced walls that make it possible to grow vines on the steep slopes, then pulverizing the shale with iron tools to form a rocky soil so the vines could take root. “Humans did this — it’s the story of my ancestors,” Ana tells us. Her grandparents were the last generation to work the land this way. Newer parts of the valley are now opened up with mechanized equipment. But the historic walls remain as a reminder of what can be accomplished with sweat and determination. The valley is classified as a World Heritage Site.
The afternoon takes us high into the hills for a visit to the Quinta do Panascal estate owned by the House of Fonseca, where we taste a dry white port, a vintage ruby and a 20-year-old tawny. Far below the Távora River makes snakes through a narrow, terraced valley to join the Douro a few kilometers away. For some reason the chorus of the Coldplay song Paradise is stuck in my head.
Finally it’s back to the valley floor and the town of Pinhão, for a boat-ride further up the Douro. The excursion boat looks like one of the old barcos rabelos, only now powered by an electric motor and fitted with deck chairs instead of stacked with wine barrels. It’s a Monday afternoon in April. The boat isn’t crowded. The electric motor pushes us upriver as quietly as a sail.
All around us vineyards made of crushed shale and sun march up the towering hillsides. We’re not experiencing time as it’s normally measured in the 21st century. This is not so much living in the moment. It’s living in the epoch. The river has wound through the valley for ages. People and nature have co-existed here almost as long, transforming one another in ways that should have been impossible. Ana brings us one last port to taste, a vino fino from her own village. One more invitation to see a special side of a place, and in a way of humanity itself.
“Now you understand why I so love my valley,” she tells us. “Now you understand why port wine can only be made here.”
