Douro Valley | Honeymoon Part 2
The Douro Valley is one of the most beautiful wine regions in the world. We visit our California wine country (Napa, Sonoma) all the time, but we were told that it would be well worth the time and effort to take a day and drive from Porto to the Douro Valley, and that was absolutely true! Minus the part where we got sent down a rocky side path and nearly got stuck forever. But not to worry, we made it back to tell the beautiful tale.
From Porto, we rented a car, and Alex drove us the 90 minutes or so up the river to the valley. Not unlike home! But look at these incredible terraced vineyards that step up and down the hills surrounding the river.
We visited Quinta do Bomfim for a tour and tasting of their ports. We learned that Quinta means vineyard or estate, but it also means Thursday, the fifth day of the week. This is one of the estates of the Symington Family, which is one of the largest port families that owns Graham’s, Dow’s, and more. They produce a third of all ports. Almost all ports are British-owned, and this is really no exception, though they are now in the fifth generation in Portugal.
Gigantic production rooms.
Port starts off like any wine (which they call dry wines), but then the fermentation process is halted partway through by the addition of a neutral alcohol. It makes it sweeter than other wines. We also learned that there are four types of port: ruby, tawny, white, and rose. But white and rose are relatively new inventions, and the traditional ports will rubies and tawnies. The gigantic 125-year old barrels pictures below are used for making rubies, for less wood to wine ratio, whereas tawnies are produced in smaller barrels.
Afterwards, a little walk around the vines. We would end up back here later, not really intentionally…
Love a good fall coloring on the vineyards! All of the wines in the Douro Valley are made from indigenous grapes native to Portugal. All of the ports are blends of different grapes, and winemakers like to utilize the highly varied conditions of the terraced vineyards to select grapes that were grown in all sorts of conditions to balance each other in the profile they’re looking to match.
Down to the local train station, which is beautiful and features lovely tile murals.
Then we went back up the mountain for some views over the valley! There seemed to be many different controlled burns happening all over the valley, lending some smoky ambiance to the scene.
It was stunning!
But then we really should not have followed the google maps route that took us down through some extremely steep, rocky, unpaved farmland road… We had to get out and try to push the car, and then it seemed like we were going to be stuck forever… but eventually we made it down. Phew.
And we ended up right back at Quinta do Bomfim. Go figure.
Back on the road! It was another scenic drive back towards Porto.
We stopped at Six Senses Hotel for drinks and a snack before leaving the valley. It’s a beautiful resort-like hotel and would be a great home base for a future stay in the Douro region.
Such a beautiful day trip to an iconic wine country!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
Part 1: Porto | Honeymoon Part 1
Part 2: Douro Valley | Honeymoon Part 2
Part 3: Lisbon | Honeymoon Part 3
Part 4: Gran Canaria | Honeymoon Part 4
