Today was the day I’d most been looking forward to so far this trip. We got to go up the Douro Valley!  We left pretty quickly after breakfast, and started driving towards Quinta de Vallado, the only place I’d managed to get reservations for in the entire valley. Stuff sure fills up fast out here, especially if you want a tour in English…

We arrived at the quinta and were served a welcome drink, a white Port that was delicious. We started the tour shortly after that. This tour was actually pretty interesting. The actual wine is produced here, so we got to see the actual vines and the process they use to make wine. They even still stomp the grapes by foot, but they also have a machine that helps if they can’t get enough human help. It was pretty fun to see where that happens. 

The building is built into the side of a hill, and the grapes start at the top and the wine is pulled downhill by gravity as it goes through the various stages of fermentation. It’s really cool to see the process. 

When the tour was over, we got to taste the wine. The white was delicious, as were the three reds and the Port. The three reds were probably the most impressive to me – there was no bite whatsoever in any of them. SO GOOD. 

After the tasting, we drove to the little village of Pinhão, where we had lunch at Tim’s Terrace, a restaurant at the Quinta de la Rosa. I had another incredible steak sandwich, and we shared a flight of the quinta’s  wines. They were good, but not as good as the ones from the morning…  We wandered the town for a little bit after lunch, had some coffee (and more wine!) at a little cafe, and headed back to Porto. 

The evening was another sandwich-from-the-grocery type of evening, we were exhausted. Bed felt really good that night!

Here’s the video: