Wine tour

 Tough getting up this morning.  Our curtains were drawn so it was dark and cozy!  Definitely not b/c of the wine we drank last night. Breakfast upstairs - similar to others ones with fruit, croissants, meat, cheeses, yogurt, eggs.  The butter isn’t as good though.  

Daniel picked us up for a full day wine and Douro tour.  We kind of zig zagged around and realized you can’t really drive on both side of the river.  There’s a train track, not a road so you have to use this side of the river for all travel.  Started of at a small producer, Pedros Melanos who does 8-11000 cases. Learned so much! Most people sell their grapes for Port - 20,000 growers (10 years ago was 38,000) of which 30% actually make wine - dry and port. And many of these are on 2 hectares or less. His father worked for the company that bought the grapes from smaller growers and saw that’s not where the money was so they encouraged their son to go to school for it and take over to make wine.  Took a while to sort it out b/c he tried to make wine to get a score but then realized he was better off making wine how Douro demanded.  It’s all good. The wine was $20.  It would be $65 in the states.  They do all of it by hand, foot stomping included!  Really wonderful to see and taste.

Then headed to lunch way up in the hills. Mountains? Quinta dos Magusteiros.  Cod, veal, fresh veg, fruit and bread. Delicious!  And beautiful views.  But this high up everything is a beautiful view. Really.  Full and ready to go we headed to the river to do a short cruise.  I thought it was going to be more private but it was with 20+ other people and we just cruised 15 minutes up and back, no discussion about the area, vineyards or ruins. Pretty disappointing but fine. Speaking of boats, the locals and environmentalists really hate the cruises here. They hurt the fish and the river.  They are quite ugly.  The ones from Porto to Douro literally travel 2 hours, stay and hour and go 2 hours back.  Not worth it.  Only if you want to check Douro off your list vs staying and enjoying the area.

Headed off to our final wine tasting at a huge winery but it has a small feel. They do 300,000 cases but they have a 7 Quinta's under the Alves de Sousa family.  It’s very confusing b/c you can’t use the family name.  You can trade mark it.  I have to look more into that to be sure that’s what they meant. They make a lot of small batches and our host, Andrea, was the best host we have ever had.  Her knowledge of the history of the valley, the wine and and interesting note about the sexism.  Her father sent her and her sister to Lisbon to study bc, while they did wine all of their life, there were no females in the wine industry and no other opportunities for the.  She taught French for many years in a school and happened back into the industry when she tutored a son of a wine maker.  Now she is a big part of Alves de Sousa, after a stint at the original place she started.  The wines were very good. We even had a white port tasting and really learned about the history of port and how they drink it.  The port they sold the world is not the port they drank.  It is not syrupy or thick.  And they drink it as an apertive, not a dessert. An open bottle can last 6-9 months in the fridge, depending on its age. 

It was kind of a long day but we made it back and Daniel was fantastic. We rallied and after he dropped us off we headed to dinner in Regua’ at Aneto and Table.  Fish, veal, wine. The end.