António Magalhães closed his lecture on the Douro’s grape varieties with a provocative question: “But who can hope to understand so many grapes without tasting Port?”
Port wine is the ultimate expression of the vineyards of the Douro Valley. As scholar Alfredo Guerra Tenreiro famously observed, “There is a uniqueness in the Douro climate that one can recognize and feel in the uniqueness of Port wine.”
Here are António’s recommendations for enjoying Port wine at its best.
Five Golden Rules
1) Choose the proper glass A classic white wine glass made of thin glass is ideal for Port. It lifts the aromas, focuses the flavors, and makes every sip a celebration.
2) Serve Port properly chilled The ideal serving temperatures for each style of Port are: • White Ports: 6–10 °C (43–50 °F) • Tawnies: 10–12 °C (50–54 °F) • Rubies: 12–16 °C (54–61 °F)
Once opened, White Ports and Tawnies should be stored in the refrigerator door. Ruby Ports, especially Vintage Ports, are best enjoyed soon after the cork is pulled.
The British have a tradition of passing the Vintage Port bottle or decanter from right to left, keeping it in motion. If someone forgets, the other guests often ask, “Do you know the Bishop of Norwich?”—a nod to Henry Bathurst, the early-19th-century bishop known for dozing off at dinner and neglecting to pass the Port.
3) Keep a 20-Year-Old Tawny in the refrigerator Tawnies are crafted from wines of various harvests, aged patiently in oak casks until the perfect moment for blending and bottling. A 20-year-old Tawny brings together wines with a weighted average age of twenty years, creating an alchemy of time and winemaking artistry. António’s longtime favorite is the magnificent Taylor’s 20-Year-Old Tawny Port.
4) Always decant Vintage and Crusted Ports Vintage Ports are bottled without filtration, which allows them to continue evolving in the bottle. Over time, sediment naturally accumulates. Decanting separates the clear wine from this sediment—harmless, yet coarse and unwelcome in the glass. It also allows the wine to breathe, letting oxygen gently soften its structure and release its full array of aromas.
When Port was shipped in barrels, British merchants crafted Crusted Ports by blending more than one Vintage, aging the wines in large wooden vats, and bottling them unfiltered for cellaring. After Portugal banned bulk exports of Vintage Port in 1974 (extended to all Ports in 1997), this style became rare. Today, only a few houses, like Fonseca, continue the tradition. Like Vintage Ports, Crusted Ports develop a natural “crust” as they mature and should always be decanted before serving.
5) Port is to be shared Port invites conversation and brings out sincerity. Violette Toussaint, the unforgettable protagonist of Valérie Perrin’s Fresh Water for Flowers, put it best: “My port wine has the same effect on everyone. It acts like a truth serum.”
How to Decant a Vintage or Crusted Port at Home
The day before serving, select the bottle you wish to open and stand it upright so the sediment can settle at the bottom. Leave it somewhere convenient—on a sideboard or on the kitchen counter.
Use a suitable corkscrew; a two-pronged cork puller is ideal for opening older bottles, whose corks are often fragile. Once opened, pour the wine slowly into a decanter or glass jug.
Strain the wine through a small flannel filter to ensure perfect clarity. Take a moment to taste the wine and enjoy that first impression.
Rinse the bottle and let it drain completely. Return the decanted wine to the original bottle. Keep the bottle in a cool place and check the temperature before bringing it to the table. If needed, a brief rest, fifteen minutes or so, in the refrigerator door will bring it to the ideal 16–18 ºC, with the higher end recommended for older Ports.
Magical Pairings
White Port
White Port is typically enjoyed as an aperitif and is made in a range of styles, from extra-dry to sweet. Even the sweeter versions remain balanced and never feel cloying on the palate.
There are two production approaches: oxidative and non-oxidative. In the non-oxidative style, winemakers shield the wine from oxygen to preserve its vibrancy. These Ports are bright and citrusy, ideal for the popular Port Tonic cocktail.
In contrast, the oxidative school relies on controlled exposure to air. Depending on the winemaker’s approach, this exposure may begin during fermentation and continue throughout aging in wooden vessels ranging from small casks to larger vats such as toneis and balseiros. Over time, this gentle oxidation deepens the wine’s character, imparting a golden hue and nuanced layers of nuts, caramel, butterscotch, and dried fruits.
António favors the oxidative style. His preferred White Ports, both made from blends that include Malvasia Fina, are the Fonseca Guimaraes Siroco—crisp and extra-dry—and the Ramos Pinto Finest White Reserve, which offers a discreet, delicate sweetness.
White Port pairs beautifully with toasted almonds, especially those from the Douro Superior, and with codfish cakes. It also harmonizes with soft-ripened cheeses, lending a bright acidity that lifts their richness.
Tawny Port
Tawnies pair blissfully with sweet desserts. In the Douro Valley, they are often served with crème brûlée—torched before serving—or almond tart. Egg pudding and Tawny Port are made for each other; tradition even calls for two glasses of Port instead of one: the first to honor the pudding, and the second to toast the cook who prepared it.
Another indulgence that pairs perfectly with Tawny Port is Toucinho do Céu (bacon from heaven), a convent sweet made with almonds, egg yolks, sugar, and a touch of lard that lends a soft, velvety texture. Murça, near Vila Real, is renowned for the version created at the Santa Maria Monastery and now made by Casa das Queijadas e Toucinho do Céu. The town is also celebrated for the vineyards that surround it, which produce some of the Douro’s finest white grapes—coveted by both Port and DOC Douro winemakers.
Tawnies also shine alongside nuts, dried fruit, or simply on their own, paired only with the quiet luxury of time and good conversation.
Ruby Port
Ruby Ports are excellent companions for cured cheeses. Portugal offers a rich array of these cheeses from regions such as the Estrela Mountain near Seia, Serpa in Alentejo, Azeitão near Lisbon, and São Jorge in the Azores.
English Port merchants traditionally pair Ruby Ports, particularly Vintage Ports, with Stilton cheese. Vintage Port is made only in exceptional years, aged in wood for one or two winters, and then bottled to mature slowly and majestically.
For an unforgettable experience, seek out the Vintage Vargellas Vinhas Velhas 2004, crafted in a superb year from a field blend of vines planted soon after phylloxera. António believes old vineyards like the one that produces this wine hold the key to understanding the future of viticulture in the Douro Valley.
Late Bottled Vintage (LBV)
António enjoys pairing LBVs (rubies aged four to six years in oak and then bottled), with chocolate mousse. His favorite mousse replaces butter with extra-virgin olive oil from the Douro Valley. He generously shares his recipe below.
Mousse de Perdição (Sinful Chocolate Mousse)
Ingredients • 150 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa) • 100 ml extra-virgin olive oil (preferably from the olive groves that frame Douro vineyards) • 5 tablespoons sugar • 4 eggs, with yolks and whites separated
Instructions
1. Melt the chocolate Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt gently in a bain-marie or in short microwave intervals. Allow it to cool slightly.
2. Add the olive oil Whisk in the olive oil until the mixture is smooth and glossy.
3. Prepare the yolks Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy. Fold into the chocolate mixture.
4. Whip the egg whites Beat the whites until firm peaks form, then gently fold them into the chocolate base, preserving as much lightness as possible.
5. Chill Spoon into serving cups or a single bowl. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, ideally overnight.
The third lecture on the Douro Valley, led by the great viticulturist António Magalhães, focused on grape varietals. He began by reminding us that no grape can be understood in isolation and that, in the hierarchy of terroir elements, climate takes gold, soil silver, and grape varieties only bronze.
Why, then, are wine lovers so obsessed with varietals? The Californian winegrower Robert Mondavi helped transform grapes into celebrities—Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay became the first wine influencers. He taught consumers to treat varietals as if they had fixed personalities—yet the same grape can dazzle in one vineyard and disappoint in another.
The Douro’s Grape Diversity
Italy is famous for its grape diversity, but its varieties are scattered across many regions. The Douro concentrates an extraordinary diversity into a single valley: there are currently 110 grape varieties authorized for Port and Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC) wines, a rich palette essential for adapting vines to the valley’s wide range of climates and soils.
This grape diversity arose from two pivotal episodes. The 1756 demarcation of the Douro region by the Marquis of Pombal unified the valley’s scattered vineyard “islands,” promoting the circulation of cuttings from the best vines and attracting varieties from elsewhere in Portugal and abroad, now that only the Douro could legally produce Port wine.
A century later, the phylloxera crisis triggered a second wave of diversity. Growers turned to Mourisco Tinto, a grape praised by the Baron of Forrester as “the original port-wine grape, of a Burgundy character, producing a wine free from acidity and full of fine dry flavour.”
Mourisco Tinto, a variety that is relatively resilient to phylloxera, has functionally female flowers that must be fertilized by neighboring varieties. This cross-pollination produced important new grape varieties, such as Tinta da Barca.
Despite its storied past, a 2017 government decree quietly removed Mourisco Tinto from the list of grapes permitted in Douro denomination wines. António mourns the loss of dignity inflicted on a variety that is the mother of so many Douro grapes.
What were the grapes planted in pre-phylloxera vineyards?
Key Varieties Before the Onset of Phylloxera in 1862-63
In 1846, the Baron of Forrester captured the essence of pre-phylloxera Douro red grapes in his trademark telegraphic English: Bastardo was “the sweetest,” Sousão “the deepest colored,” Alvarelhão “a claret grape,” and Touriga “the finest” — a four-word taxonomy of the old Douro.
Touriga Nacional—then simply Touriga, for no rival shared its name—was esteemed for its color and quality, even as it tested growers with its demands. After phylloxera, its cross with Mourisco Tinto produced Touriga Francesa, and the original Touriga acquired a new name, Touriga Nacional.
Tinta Francisca was a pillar of the old wines. For António, this grape is the epitome of elegance—upright in the vineyard, and capable of wines of striking finesse when carefully farmed. Its yields are modest, as if the varietal had taken a vow of Franciscan poverty.
Bastardo appears in nearly every pre-phylloxera inventory. Its early ripening made it irresistible to birds, and its weak performance in hot, dry years tarnished its reputation; after phylloxera, it was largely abandoned.
Francisco Rebello da Fonseca praised Tinto Cão in his renowned Agricultural Memoirs (1790). Exceptionally late-ripening, it “ripens well without drying or rotting” and produces strong, generous wines with remarkable acidity.
Vigorous and resilient, it falters in very cool years but excels in hot, dry ones. Its leaves dry and fall off early, exposing clusters that shrug off the same sun that crucifies other grapes. This resilience makes it one of the Douro varieties best suited to a warming climate.
As with the reds, early records identify the key white grapes. Gouveio was considered noble but finicky, thriving only at the right altitude and soil depth. Viosinho was valued yet scarce. Malvasias (Malmseys) were prized for Port, although growers rarely distinguished among their many subtypes. Rabigato was already admired for its complete profile, and Moscatel contributed its alluring aromas. Arinto do Douro, today known as Dorinto, also appears in early inventories.
Beyond these core grapes lay a multitude of other white varieties—once common, now rare or nearly extinct.
Replanting the Douro: The Grapes of the Post-Phylloxera Era
In the 1940s, Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca, the President of the Board of Casa do Douro (the vine-growers’ association), classified eighty-eight grape varieties—fifty-one red and thirty-seven white—into five categories ranging from very good to bad.
In winemaking, as in chamber music, the quartet is a natural ensemble. The four grapes that have long formed the backbone of Ports and DOC Douro reds—Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa (also known as Touriga Franca), Tinta Roriz, and Tinta Barroca—play together with the balance and tension of a seasoned string quartet. Each contributes a distinct voice; together, they create harmony.
Touriga Nacional
Touriga Nacional has been the Douro’s first violin for more than two centuries. Nineteenth-century grapevine botanists praise its thick-skinned berries, velvety wines, and remarkable balance, placing it among Portugal’s noblest grapes and worthy of comparison with the world’s best varieties. Yet after phylloxera, Touriga Nacional fell out of favor: it was laborious to train, produced too many small clusters, and exhausted growers’ patience. Its less demanding descendants—Touriga Francesa, Tinta Barroca, and Tinta da Barca—took center stage. Only in the 1970s and 1980s, when Port shippers became large-scale viticulturists, did Touriga Nacional regain its pre-phylloxera prestige, becoming a cornerstone of both Port and Douro DOC wines.
Touriga Francesa, today the Douro’s most widely planted grape, is the quartet’s second violin. A cross of Mourisco Tinto and Touriga Nacional, its name likely an homage to the French hybridization school that may have helped create it.
In the vineyard, it performs with admirable consistency: productive, reliable, and notably resistant to powdery mildew, downy mildew, and heat. It thrives across a wider range of soils than Touriga Nacional and performs just as gracefully in the cellar, yielding deeply colored, aromatic wines with soft tannins and long life. Its only caprice is timing: the harvest window is narrow, and the vines offer few clues when the fruit reaches its peak.
But no variety is perfect. In 1989, António discovered that Touriga Francesa is unusually hospitable toLobesia botrana (grape moth), especially when planted outside of a field blend.
Tinta Roriz, the Douro’s second most planted red variety, is the viola of the region. Its personality is complex—vigorous yet disease-prone, early-ripening, and very sensitive to its site. In the right place, it delivers depth, firm tannins, and remarkable aging potential. It is indispensable in Port and ubiquitous in old field blends. But when planted in unsuitable locations or grafted onto overly vigorous rootstocks, it yields disappointing results. For this reason, it does not always receive the appreciation it deserves from Douro winemakers.
Tinta Barroca, another cross of Mourisco Tinto and Touriga Nacional, may be identical to the pre-phylloxera Boca de Mina praised by Forrester as “the most delicious.” In musical terms, it is the cello—naturally sweet with a supple texture. Early-ripening with high color and low tannins, it excels on cooler or north-facing slopes where its sugars stay in balance. Its vigor and sprawling shoots complicate canopy management, and Downy mildew can trouble it, though oidium rarely does.
But in the Douro, a quartet rarely suffices. Most winemakers rely on six or more varietals. Supporting grapes like Tinta Amarela, Tinto Cão, Tinta Francisca, and Tinta da Barca—along with others like Rufete, Malvasia Preta, Sousão, and Cornifesto—add color, acidity, perfume, structure, and nuance. Together they create the fuller orchestra needed to reveal the Douro’s symphonic splendor.
As with the red varieties, each white grape carries a distinct personality shaped by altitude, exposure, and soil. Viosinho is a Douro ex-libris—elegant, early-ripening, with golden berries that glow on sun-exposed parcels. It brings citrus-floral lift and finesse to both dry whites and the finest white Ports, though it requires vigilance against powdery mildew.
Viozinho
Traditionally more tied to Port production than to dry Douro whites, Malvasia Fina ripens early and easily reaches raisin stage, making altitude and cooler sites its natural allies. In shallow soils it struggles, and in deep soils it becomes overly vigorous, shading bunches and encouraging powdery mildew. When well grown, it contributes fragrance, texture, and a touch of richness to blends.
Gouveio is an ancient Douro variety discussed in Rui Fernandes’ 1531 survey of the Lamego region. It is low-yielding and delicate; its thin skins make it vulnerable to sunburn and powdery mildew, so it requires sheltered sites. It produces firm, well-structured wines with good alcohol and remains essential to both Port and high-quality Douro table whites.
Rabigato has long been recognized as an elite white grape, praised for its noble character and distinctive, highly valued flavor. It ripens late, and although its thick skins once suggested resistance to rot, plantings in monovarietal parcels have shown that it is, in fact, highly susceptible to downy mildew. Despite this fragility, its rise in the Douro has been meteoric, excelling both as a single-varietal and as a vital contributor to blends.
Another white grape moving beyond old field blends into solo bottlings, Códega do Larinho stands out for the complexity of its fruity aroma. In blends, it adds character and perfume, though it sometimes relies on companions to supply the acidity it can lack. Its charm lies in its exuberance and adaptability.
Arinto
Arinto’s star keeps rising thanks to its late ripening, naturally high acidity, and impressive heat resistance. In the Douro, it is traditionally used in blends—completing the classic trio of Malvasia Fina, Viosinho, and Gouveio. It provides freshness, tension, and backbone in a region where heat is always a challenge. Dourinto, the indigenous Arinto, has fallen out of favor compared to the Arinto from Bucellas, near Lisbon, but it still lingers in many vineyards, waiting to be rediscovered.
Moscatel Galego Branco found its spiritual home in Favaios and Alijó, where it gives life to the Douro’s fortified Moscatel wines, making the Douro the only wine region to craft two fortified wines—Port and Moscatel. Throughout the valley, winemakers draw on Moscatel Galego Branco’s unmistakable floral aromatics to enrich a wide range of blends. It remains one of the Douro’s most expressive and recognizable white varieties.
For white grapes, the core ensemble is led by Viosinho, Gouveio, and Rabigato. Malvasia Fina completes the quartet for Port production, while Códega de Larinho takes the fourth chair for DOC Douro wines. Yet, as with the reds, most producers favor a fuller quintet—drawing on all these varieties, or a sextet that adds Arinto to achieve greater balance, nuance, and harmony.
Massal versus Clonal Selection
Knowing the varieties is only the beginning; equally important is how vines are propagated. The choice between massal and clonal selection shapes diversity, disease resistance, and wine style.
António argues that massal selection should take precedence over clonal selection. Clonal selection multiplies a single vine, ensuring uniformity but narrowing genetic diversity and increasing vulnerability to disease.
Massal selection is like saving seeds from your best heirloom tomatoes. It preserves natural diversity within a variety—differences in ripening, acidity, and disease tolerance—and honors the personality of a site. António notes that identical DNA does not guarantee identical behavior in the vineyard or in the cellar. Tinta Roriz may share its genetic code with Aragonês and Tempranillo, but centuries in Douro soils have shaped it into something distinct. The same is true of Souzão and Vinhão.
António admires Italy’s guardians of grape varieties—people who preserve living collections of rare grapes. The Douro, with its extraordinary diversity, needs similar guardians.
Soloists
Once vines are in the ground, winemakers must decide how to use their fruit. And much as in an orchestra where only a few instruments can captivate an audience when playing unaccompanied, only a handful of Douro grapes can enthrall wine lovers as soloists.
Touriga Nacional is the clearest example, capable of depth, elegance, and longevity, although it is often too exuberant for Port unless blended. Tinto Cão is another–superb when planted in hot, western-facing slopes. Among the whites, Rabigato and Gouveio are steadily earning soloist status.
Most varieties, however, play supporting roles: Barroca brings sweetness and color, Sousão deepens the hue, Rufete contributes delicacy, and Malvasia Preta or Cornifesto add nuance and acidity.
There are, of course, exceptions. In Ravel’s Boléro, the bassoon unexpectedly rises to lead the melody. Similarly, in the Douro, a modest grape can sometimes make a vineyard sing. In the original vines at Quinta da Réduída, in Folgosa do Douro (Cima Corgo), Malvasia Preta—considered merely “good” by Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca–comprises forty percent of the field blend and yields a superb wine.
Tinta Barca and Tinto Cão
The Douro’s Four Blends
Single-varietal wines are an intriguing new trend, but the Douro’s character is best expressed in the way winemakers bring grapes together to create blends of remarkable harmony and depth. They blend varieties in the vineyard, combine them in the granite lagares during fermentation, and later assemble wines from different plots—and, in the case of Tawny Ports, even from different vintages.
The Magic of Field Blends
António says a winery needs a core palette of about a dozen varietals, though having twenty or thirty across white and red grapes is even better. The Douro’s Mediterranean climate, with its year-to-year weather fluctuations, gives each vintage its own triumphs and trials: some grapes flourish while others struggle. Planting many varieties together helps obtain reliable results even when varieties ripen at the wrong time, and when the weather affects the various stages of the vine’s life cycle, from budbreak to harvest.
Old field blends mix red and white grapes, major and obscure varieties—a randomness that demands care at harvest time but preserves priceless genetic diversity.
After 1970, field blends were modernized. Today’s approach preserves diversity across varieties, while massal selection safeguards diversity within each variety. Viticulturists fine-tune the choice of grapes to the vineyard’s location, soil structure—especially soil depth—and to microclimates shaped by topography, altitude, and solar exposure. Each vineyard thus becomes an irreproducible mosaic of grape varieties.
During harvest, the blend can be refined by adjusting how much of each variety is picked, by advancing or delaying the picking of certain grapes, and by bringing fruit from early- or late-ripening parcels together with grapes from other vineyards to create a more harmonious whole.
When designing a field blend, viticulturists also value the vineyard’s beauty. In choosing which varieties to plant, they imagine not only the wine they will yield but also how the leaves will glow green in spring and burnish into a tapestry of yellow and red hues, allowing the Douro to reinvent its beauty in every season.
Co-Fermentation in the Lagar
In 1790, Francisco Rebello da Fonseca discussed the essential principles of field blending and co-fermentation. He observed that wines best suited to aging and long sea voyages required an austere, astringent profile with a firm vinous bite—a character achieved by combining less-sweet, slightly acidic grapes with sweeter ones.
Rebello da Fonseca criticized the growing trend of fermenting each variety separately rather than co-fermenting grapes that complement each other. Indeed, in the lagares–the granite tanks used for grape fermentation–co-fermentation often yields results unattainable through separate vinifications. Tinta Barroca, for example, gains structure when fermented alongside a tannic partner such as Touriga Francesa. Such fermentations create interactions—between tannins, pigments, and aromatics—that cannot be replicated by blending finished wines.
Blending Across the Hillsides
Enologists blend grapes that originate from different plots. Grapes from higher plots bring acidity and freshness; those from lower sites contribute alcohol, tannins, and color. Together they form balanced, expressive wines.
To produce ruby ports in general, and vintage ports in particular, master blenders combine wines from different plots and, sometimes, from different estates.
This practice is not unique to Port. Some table wines also draw on fruit from multiple estates. The famous Barca Velha, the table wine first produced by Fernando Nicolau de Almeida in 1952, was a blend of grapes from Quinta do Vale Meão in the hot Douro Superior and from higher-altitude vineyards in Meda.
Blending Through Time: Tawny and Crusted Ports
In Tawny Ports, different vintages are blended in the same bottle, each carrying the imprint of its own harvest and years in wood. Older wines offer depth and wisdom, and younger ones brightness and energy, resulting in a symphony of flavors and aromas.
When Port was shipped in barrels, British merchants would blend wines from more than one Vintage, age them in large wooden vats, and bottle them unfiltered. These “Crusted Ports” took their name from the natural crust or sediment that formed in the bottle. Today, only a few houses, such as Fonseca, preserve this traditional style.
Coda
With each passing year, the art of blending preserves the Douro’s identity—a landscape defined by diversity and adaptation, and by the harmony created by climate, soil, and vineyards that produce extraordinary wines.
This is the second lecture about the Douro Valley by the great viticulturist António Magalhães. Today’s theme goes literally beneath the surface. After exploring the climate in our first session, we turn to the second pillar of the region’s terroir: its soil.
A Soil Made by Hand
When you walk through a vineyard in the Douro Valley, take a moment to look down. You see the slow artistry of nature, which over millions of years created the schist beneath your feet, and the tireless toil of generations who transformed it into living soil where vines can thrive.
The Douro’s deep valleys were carved over millennia by the river and its tributaries. On those steep slopes, the native soils, known as leptosols, are little more than a palm’s depth of earth resting on hard schist. Left untouched, they would never have sustained flourishing vines.
But in the Douro, people refused to accept nature’s limits. Over the course of centuries, they created anthrosols — soils made by human hands. The locals call the act saibrar, agronomists surribar: it means breaking rock to create soil where vineyards can grow.
The photograph shows that the schist bedrock appears brittle and easily broken. Above it lies the soil created by human labor. Look closely, and you can see the vine roots reaching down, searching for that last drop of water that keeps them alive through the scorching summer heat.
The image illustrates the words of the Marquis of Villa Maior, from his 1875 treatise, Practical Viticulture:
“The longevity of the Douro and Burgundy vines is due to the extraordinary development of their roots, favored by the nature of the subsoil.”
Breaking Rock to Grow Life
Until the late 19th century, surribar was done with nothing more than pickaxes and iron bars. In the 20th century, dynamite was introduced, followed later by bulldozers and hydraulic excavators. Yet the goal remained the same: to give each vine at least a meter and a half of soil depth.
The schist fractures almost vertically, allowing roots to slip deep between its plates. There, the vine finds not abundance but balance: less than 1.5 percent organic matter, yet perfectly aerated and rich in minerals. These fractured layers also ensure excellent drainage, carrying away excess rainwater while retaining just enough moisture for the vines to endure the long dry season. It is a poor soil that yields noble fruit, a reminder that in wine, perhaps as in life, struggle builds character.
Stones and Gravel
Kneel in a Douro vineyard and you’ll see a glittering mosaic of crushed stone and gravel. To outsiders, it looks barren; to the vines, it’s paradise.
In 1947, agronomist Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca, who devised the Douro’s vineyard classification, ranked soils by their gravel content. His creed, simple and enduring, can be expressed in words worthy of being carved in stone: “Vines thrive on stony ground.”
The gravel plays alchemy with the elements: reflecting sunlight by day, releasing heat by night, regulating the vine’s rhythm. It stores warmth, tempers vigor, and transforms scarcity into intensity.
Counting by the Thousands
António says that “The poorer the soil, the closer the vines.” Douro farmers compensate for the soil’s low fertility by planting vines at higher densities. Each vine produces modestly, but together they create abundance. Instead of counting hectares, growers speak of milheiros — groups of a thousand vines.
After the phylloxera epidemic, the rebuilt terraces — socalcos — reached a density of 6.5 milheiros per hectare, enough to make every meter of stone wall worthwhile.
Sculpting the Mountain
Rain, the same force that helped carve the Douro, also threatens to destroy it. The solution lies in building terraces to prevent soil from sliding away. During the surriba, the stones brought to the surface are removed and reused to build the vineyard walls. This operation, called despedrega, is a practice that makes the back-breaking labor of surribar more rewarding.
Some of the terraces devastated by phylloxera were never replanted. Many owners, overcome with despair, abandoned the region to rebuild their lives elsewhere. Others chose to start anew, replanting vines on gentler slopes with more forgiving soils and milder climates.
These abandoned terraces, known as mortórios, have been reclaimed by the Mediterranean forest. Their stone walls, now entwined with wild vegetation, stand as silent witnesses to a tragic chapter in the Douro’s history.
The oldest terraces, built after phylloxera, were supported by dry-stone walls, feats of balance and beauty where each stone rests “one upon two.” In the 1960s, as labor became scarce and tractors arrived, new earth-banked terraces (patamares), depicted below, took their place — practical but less graceful.
At the turn of this century, António Magalhães and David Guimaraens, the head winemaker of Taylor’s Fladgate, combined the beauty of the old dry-stone terraces with the practicality of the modern earth-banked ones. Inspired by California’s Benziger Family Winery, they built narrow terraces, just 1.5 meterswide, each with a single vine row and a gentle 3 percent slope to drain rainwater safely. Precision-leveled by laser, this innovation protects against erosion while preserving the Douro’s graceful geometry.
Root and Rock
The phylloxera plague that ravaged European vineyards in the late nineteenth century arrived at the Douro in 1863-64.
Salvation only came after Jules-Émile Planchon, a French botanist, and Charles Valentine Riley, an American entomologist, discovered that grafting European grapevines (Vitis vinifera) onto American rootstocks could save the vines.
One such rootstock, Rupestris du Lot, thrived on the Douro’s poor, dry, schistous hillsides.
It seems to facilitate potassium absorption. This mineral helps regulate the opening and closing of tiny pores on leaves, called stomata, which control transpiration and CO₂ uptake — both essential to photosynthesis.
For decades, the Rupestris du Lot anchored the valley’s post-phylloxera vineyards, its deep-seeking roots echoing the surriba’s purpose: to connect life to stone. Even as newer, more productive hybrids replaced it, António continues to praise its quiet virtues — longevity, restraint, and resilience — the very qualities that define the Douro itself.
Granite Lagares
The granite lagares of the Douro are among the most enduring symbols of the region’s winemaking heritage. Their coarse surfaces help regulate temperature during fermentation and impart a tactile connection to the land — the sensation of grape skins and must mingling with the mineral essence of granite itself.
For centuries, blocks of rock were quarried from places like Vila Pouca de Aguiar, Portugal’s self-proclaimed “granite capital,” where the stone’s density allows it to be cut into large rectangular slabs.
António concludes his lecture with poetic words: “In the Douro where I grew up, the grapes journey from rock to rock — ripening in the heat of schist and fermenting in cool granite lagares.”
What to Visit
The train trip from Pinhão to Pocinho offers a geology lesson. Along the slopes that flank the railway, you see the leptosol with its thin layer of soil above the parent rock.
The art of building dry stone walls is beautifully explained at the Wine Museum in São João da Pesqueira, a town whose historic center also deserves exploration. The visit whets the appetite for lunch at Toca da Raposa, in Ervedosa do Douro, about 8 kilometers away along the National Road 222, heading toward the mouth of the Torto River — another magical tributary that shapes the wines of the Douro, alongside the Pinhão River. In the summer, you can also book an unforgettable picnic at the Foz Torto estate with our friend Abílio Tavares da Silva.
António Magalhães, former chief viticulturist of Taylor Fladgate, is revered throughout the Douro for his deep knowledge of its vineyards and terroir. He graciously agreed to give us a series of master classes about the Douro, and what follows are notes from the first of these sessions—an insider’s look at one of the world’s most extraordinary wine regions.
About António
António was born in Régua, in the heart of the Douro. Both of his parents came from families who cared for their own vineyards. He often spent time at his maternal grandfather’s estate, where his love for the Douro was first nurtured. Although he never inherited land, his studies were guided by a single calling: to work among the vines of his native valley.
A Land of Mountains and Microclimates
The Douro is immense — 250,000 hectares of rugged mountains, of which only 44,000 are occupied by vineyards. It is the largest mountain viticulture region in the world, and the only one with a Mediterranean climate crossed by a navigable river that flows into the Atlantic Ocean.
The basin of the Douro, the largest in the Iberian Peninsula, is shared by Portugal and Spain. Its main river and tributaries flow through a tapestry of vineyards across wine regions: Ribera del Duero, Rueda, Cigales, Toro, and Arribes, in Spain, Douro and Távora-Varosa in Portugal. You could say that the Douro is a river of wine.
The Douro’s rise as a great wine region began in 1703, when Portugal signed the Methuen Treaty with England, opening trade between the two nations. Douro’s Port wine became popular in England, and demand soared. Vineyards spread, and some producers began to cut corners—darkening their wines with elderberry juice and sweetening them with sugar. Port’s reputation faltered, and trust among English importers began to erode.
To restore order, avoid the use of fertile land for viticulture, and protect Port’s reputation, the Marquis of Pombal created the world’s first demarcated wine region in 1756. The Companhia Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro, a public company, marked its boundaries with granite pillars known as marcos pombalinos and classified its vineyards. The finest plots produced the prized vinhos de feitoria, destined for the great British trading houses (feitorias) in Porto. Wines of intermediate quality, the vinhos de embarque, were partly exported, while the more modest vinhos de ramo were reserved for local consumption. With this demarcation, a singular landscape was born, shaped by nature’s hand and human will.
It was fortuitous that there was open land in Gaia, near Porto, on the southern bank at the mouth of the Douro. There, the north-facing slopes and the cooler, more humid weather provided ideal conditions for storing and aging wine. With its quality safeguarded and easy access to an Atlantic port from which ships could carry it abroad, Port wine flourished, becoming prized around the world.
The Douro River flows west to meet the Atlantic at Porto (Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca (1944–45)).
The climate and regions of the Douro
On what António calls the “Olympic podium” of terroir, climate wins gold, soil takes silver, and grape varieties bronze. Today, we focus on climate.
Vines don’t need irrigation, but they do require at least 500 mm of rainfall per year. In the Douro, however, the irregular rainfall and rapid runoff down the steep slopes increase that need to about 600–700 mm. The timing of that rain is crucial. It rains about as much in Pinhão, at the center of the Douro, as in Paris—around 640 mm annually. However, in the capital of France, rain falls throughout the year, whereas in the Douro, the rain is in tune with the vines’ vegetative cycle: it falls mainly in autumn and winter, when the vines are dormant. Planted in the right places, Douro vineyards never suffer from thirst, only from heat.
The distribution of rainfall divides the Douro into three distinct subregions. Baixo Corgo is lush and green, blessed with 800 to 1,000 mm of rain each year. Cima Corgo, home to the great Port houses, is drier, with 600 and 800 mm. Farther east lies Douro Superior — sun-scorched, rugged, and remote, where rainfall often falls below 600 mm.
Rainfall in the Douro: blue = high, yellow = medium, orange = low.
Vineyards are abundant in Baixo Corgo and sparse in Douro Superior, where cultivation is possible only in small islands with favorable microclimates. In recent decades, irrigated vines have appeared in Douro Superior, yet they rarely produce grapes suitable for making Port.
The scholar Alfredo Guerra Tenreiro wrote that “there is a uniqueness in the Douro climate that one can feel in the uniqueness of Port wine.” In the 1940s and 1950s, he mapped the aridity of the Douro using a simple measure: average temperature multiplied by 100, divided by rainfall. As one moves west or climbs the surrounding hills, aridity decreases because the temperature falls and rainfall increases.
As we ascend the hills that flank the Douro and its tributaries, the temperature drops roughly 0.65°C per 100 meters. With peaks rising to 600 or 700 meters, temperatures can be as much as 3.6°C cooler than in vineyards planted near the river, at 100 meters of altitude.
Orientation also matters. South-facing slopes are, on average, two degrees warmer than north-facing ones during the summer — a subtle difference with dramatic effects. It explains why the Douro can yield everything from festive sparkling wines, such as Celso Pereira’s Vértice, to bright whites, velvety reds, and opulent Ports.
Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca used location, altitude, and orientation to craft his brilliant classification of the region’s vineyards, grading them from A to F. This system still underpins the benefício rules that determine how much of a vineyard’s production can be used for Port wine. His maps, drawn in 1944 and 1945, are masterpieces. Fonseca set 500 meters as the upper limit for Port production, deducting points for vineyards planted above that line.
Map by Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca (1944–45). Red marks top wine areas.
Looking at Fonseca’s maps, we see a “blessed valley” — Vale de Mendiz, where the Pinhão River meets the Douro. There, rainfall from the Baixo Corgo meets the warmth of the Cima Corgo, producing wines of exceptional balance. It is no coincidence that iconic estates like Quinta do Noval and Wine & Soul call Vale de Mendiz home.
Traveling Through the Douro
António recommends visiting the Douro between mid-May and mid-November, staying for several days to ensure you catch a sunny spell. Gray skies hide some of the valley’s splendor.
He suggests two journeys for those eager to understand the Douro.
First, drive along the A24 highway from Vila Real to Régua, crossing the Marão mountain — an invisible wall separating cool Atlantic air from the dry Mediterranean hinterland. You’ll cross the Baixo Corgo moving perpendicular to the course of the Douro River. The landscape is breathtaking, and along the way you can feel the shifts in temperature and altitude that shape the character of Douro wines.
Begin in Vila Real at 450 meters of altitude, and as you descend toward Régua, at 100 meters, feel the temperature rise and watch the hills unfold into a sea of vines. Olive trees stand like sentinels at the edges of vineyards. Climb toward Lamego, at 540 meters, and feel the air cool once more. The whitewashed houses, stone wine lodges, and hillside villages lend a human touch to the landscape, making the journey unforgettable.
In Régua, stop at Aneto, a small, family-run restaurant where hospitality flows as generously as the wine produced in their own estate. In Lamego, stop at Pastelaria Velha da Sé for a bola de carne (savory meat-filled bread), visit the cathedral, the Escadório de Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, a Baroque stairway, and admire the Ribeiro da Conceição theater, a miniature La Scala.
The second journey is by train, linking three UNESCO World Heritage sites: Porto, the Douro, and the Côa Museum, which preserves paleolithic art.
The hills were carved to lay the train tracks, turning the voyage into a geology lesson on Douro’s mother rock, the schist. Its cleavage is almost vertical, allowing the vine roots to penetrate deeply into the cracks in search of precious water.
As the train leaves Régua, schist terraces rise and curve around the river. Disembark at Pinhão and linger a few days visiting nearby wine estates. Before you go, admire the station’s twenty-four azulejo panels, made in 1937 by the Aleluia Factory in Aveiro. They depict the Douro landscape and trace the making of Port—from the harvest of sun-ripened grapes to the voyage of slender rabelo boats, which carry barrels to the cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia.
Continue upriver through the Cima Corgo, the heartland of Port. In bygone days, train-station restaurants were famed for their quality. Calça Curta, at Tua Station, keeps this tradition alive. Farther along, stop at Ferradosa Station to dine at Toca da Raposa, celebrated for its regional cooking.
As the train enters the Douro Superior, the air turns drier, the heat more intense, the hills steeper. At Cachão da Valeira, the landscape shifts to granite. Today, the river glides wide and serene, but it once raged against a massive granite barrier that made navigation perilous. Here, in 1861, tragedy struck: a boat capsized carrying two iconic figures—Dona Antónia Ferreira, owner of vast wine estates, and the Baron of Forrester, an English merchant and mapmaker who devoted his life to the region. According to legend, Dona Antónia survived, buoyed by her billowing skirts, while the Baron drowned, dragged down by the gold coins in his pockets.
In summer, cicadas sing for travelers along the stretch between the Valeira gorge and Pocinho. As you near Pocinho, the heat intensifies—writer Francisco José Viegas once quipped that “hell’s heat comes from Pocinho.” Stop at Taberna da Julinha, a local restaurant that, in the summer, serves the valley’s celebrated tomatoes, bursting with flavor and sweetness.
The Côa Museum lies about 10 kilometers from the train station. There, you can contemplate the largest and oldest ensemble of open-air Paleolithic engravings in Europe. Horses, deer, and goats emerge from the stone, their lines layered in a dance of timeless motion. Dine on the museum’s terrace, overlooking the river laid bare in all its austere beauty—terraces and cliffs carved by nature and human will.
The Future of the Douro
The Douro was forged in hardship. Its people labored to carve terraces from unforgiving slopes; its vines learned to endure searing summers and biting winter frosts. Yet this endurance may be the valley’s greatest gift. It has prepared the Douro to face the trials of a changing world.
When wine lovers ask which places they must visit in Portugal, we always recommend Bairrada—a name worth remembering, for it belongs to one of the country’s most captivating wine regions.
Famous Grapes
Bairrada’s soils are a mixture of clay and limestone with streaks of sand. The region is the birthplace of two exceptional grapes: the red Baga and the white Bical. Baga thrives in clay-limestone, while Bical flourishes in both clay-limestone and sandy soils.
The Sparkling Capital of Portugal
Bairrada is Portugal’s sparkling-wine capital. The clay-limestone soils echo the chalk of Champagne, storing moisture during dry spells and reflecting sunlight, allowing grapes to ripen slowly while retaining vibrant acidity and minerality. Cool Atlantic breezes and morning fog temper the summer heat and lengthen the maturation process, giving the fruit extra complexity. The region has been crafting traditional-method sparkling wines since 1890, and they’re now an integral part of daily life. Many meals start and finish with a glass of bubbles, transforming even simple dinners into a celebration.
Where to Stay
We like to make the Vista Alegre Hotel in Ílhavo our base. Built on the marshes of the ria, where saltwater and freshwater meet, the hotel surrounds the 19th-century manor house of the family who discovered the secret of porcelain in 1824.
The hotel’s shops overflow with graceful Vista Alegre porcelain and exuberant mid-20th-century designs by Rafael Bordallo Pinheiro. Feeling inspired? Join a porcelain-painting class and bring home your own creation.
Wine tasting
Luís Pato
Our first stop is usually the winery of the legendary Luís Pato. In the 1990s, when foreign consultants urged Portuguese farmers to replace native grapes with French varietals, he stood firm in Baga’s defense. Time has vindicated him: today his Baga wines rank among Portugal’s most prized, and his unwavering commitment has earned him the nickname “Mr. Baga.”
Luís’ energy and creativity know no bounds. His Vinha Pã Baga blanc-de-noir sparkling wine, uses hyperoxidation rather than sulfur dioxide during must clarification. The result is a wine with fine, persistent bubbles, featuring aromas of wild berries and toasted brioche, and an elegant finish.
Every year, Luís bottles 300 precious bottles of Espumante Pé Franco. It is a sparkling wine made with grapes from century-old vines rooted in sandy soils that shielded them from the phylloxera plague that swept Europe in the 19th century. These ungrafted plants produce a tenth of the yield of a modern vineyard. But the wine is extraordinary—bursting with intensity and lingering beautifully on the palate.
Luis and his daughter, Maria João, are great hosts; gather a group of friends, and they can arrange a feast with leitão (roast piglet), perfectly paired with a dazzling tasting of their wines.
Filipa Pato & William Wouters
Luís’s other daughter, Filipa Pato, and her husband, master sommelier William Wouters, farm biodynamically with stunning results. Often dressed in their playful “Baga terroirista” t-shirts, they are passionate advocates for Bairrada’s land. Their small winery isn’t set up for visits (even members of Coldplay once struggled to arrange a tasting), but their wines are easy to find in local restaurants and well worth seeking out. Highlights include Nossa Solera, a sparkling wine made from a blend of barrel-aged base vintages going back to 2001, and Nossa Missão, an exquisitely complex Baga from a small vineyard planted in 1864, produced with gentle extraction, resulting in an elegant wine that preserves the grape’s aromatic depth.
Mário Sérgio
Another icon is Mário Sérgio, who proudly calls himself a vigneron—a winemaker who only makes wines with the grapes he cultivates. Every Saturday, he and his son Frederico welcome visitors to his cellars, pouring sparkling and still wines made with joyous finesse. His celebrated Pai Abel honors his father; both the red and the white are wonderful to drink young yet reward patience, gaining even greater depth and nuance with age.
Caves São João
At Caves São João, the genial Célia Alves leads tastings in cellars that date back to 1920, where venerable still and sparkling wines astonish with their refined character and vigor.
Many of these producers, along with others, come together each year for Baga Friends, a joyful celebration of the grape and a perfect opportunity to meet them all in one place.
Where to Eat
For a regal lunch, head to the Bussaco Palace. Built in the waning days of Portugal’s monarchy, the building, surrounded by a lush forest, was once a royal hunting retreat. The British mystery writer Agatha Christie enjoyed vacationing here. Chef Nelson Marques brings the grand dining room to life with elegant dishes crafted from the finest local ingredients, creating a memorable dining experience.
The palace is renowned for producing wines with exceptional aging potential. Its legendary cellar holds vintages dating back to the early 1900s. Winemaker António Rocha continues this tradition. He recently unveiled the palace’s first sparkling wine—a sumptuous cuvée whose brioche-scented bouquet captivates the nose while the palate delights in luxurious creaminess and vibrant freshness.
No visit to Bairrada is complete without tasting leitão assado (roasted piglet). Mugasa is a perfect place to try this delicacy and a favorite lunch spot for local winemakers.
Beyond the Vineyards
Stroll along Costa Nova, famous for its candy-striped fishermen’s houses and sweeping views of the ria. Walk the wooden promenade by the beach and savor a caldeirada (fish stew) at Clube da Vela, where the river views are as memorable as the meal.
Another local delicacy, prized since Roman times, is eel. Try the fried eels or eel stew at Marinhas in Aveiro. And don’t leave without sampling the region’s signature sweets: ovos moles, a silky egg confection, and crisp wafer-like hóstias.
The Future of Bairrada
While Champagne grapples with warming temperatures—so much so that some producers are buying vineyards in England—Bairrada is protected by the cool breeze of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a region with passionate wine makers, a unique terroir, and a brilliant future.
In 2023, Grandes Escolhas, a leading wine magazine, named Diogo Lopes “Enologist of the Year.” The seeds of this recognition were planted in his childhood. While most of his friends spent their summers by the sea, Diogo stayed on his grandfather’s farm in the mountains of Covilhã. A passionate vintner, his grandfather produced 2,000 liters of wine each year—enough to enjoy with family and share with friends. The experience of harvesting grapes left a lasting impression on young Diogo.
Though he studied at the Military Academy with the intention of becoming a naval officer, the pull of the land proved stronger than the lure of the sea. He transferred to the School of Agriculture, where two encounters shaped his future: one with the legendary enology professor Virgílio Loureiro, and the other with celebrated winemaker Anselmo Mendes. In 2001, Mendes invited Diogo to join one of his harvests. Their collaboration has endured ever since. “Anselmo is my enological father,” Diogo says.
The best place to experience Diogo’s wines is Sal na Adega, a restaurant that treats codfish with the reverence it deserves. It is located next to Adega Mãe, the winery where Diogo crafts his wines.
The clay- and limestone-rich soils of Torres Vedras are ideal for sparkling wines. A striking example is Adega Mãe’s Pinot Noir espumante, which is aged for 45 months. It has a beguiling copper hue and an invigorating freshness. We could not imagine a more brilliant companion until Diogo opened an arresting Brut Nature made from Arinto and Chardonnay. In France, Chardonnay is traditionally paired with Pinot Noir, but here, it has found a dazzling new partner in Portugal’s Arinto. The chemistry between these two grapes is extraordinary. Crisp codfish cakes arrived, perfectly complementing the elegance of both sparkling wines.
Next, Diogo poured a glass of Vital, made from grapes grown in the Montejunto mountains, just eight kilometers from the sea. The terroir, rich in limestone, lends the wine subtle iodine notes and remarkable complexity. It was a perfect match for codfish Brás style, a comforting blend of shredded cod, fried potatoes, and eggs, prepared tableside.
The culinary climax came with the restaurant’s signature dish: codfish cachaço (collar). Diogo paired it with the 2017 Terroir Branco, a masterful blend of Arinto and Viosinho, a Douro varietal that has flourished in this coastal terroir. Made without haste, like in the old days, it is a wine Diogo’s grandfather would surely have cherished.
The meal concluded with a remarkable surprise: a late-harvest made from Sémillon and Petit Manseng. It was dessert in a glass, with notes of orange and fig that enchanted the palate.
If you’re looking for a memorable gastronomic journey, make your way to Sal na Adega. There, you’ll find not only superb codfish dishes but also the exceptional wines of a star winemaker whose journey from childhood harvests to national acclaim is worth celebrating.
We recently attended a Moscatel wine tasting led by enologist Frederico Vilar Gomes and fell in love with these remarkable dessert wines. Crafted in Setúbal, near Lisbon, by José Maria da Fonseca, they are made from Muscat of Alexandria—one of the oldest grape varietals still in cultivation. Enologists are unsure whether this ancient grape hails from Egypt or Greece. But its versatility is undisputed, producing both elegant table wines and rich dessert wines.
Muscat vines offer generous yields and a remarkable genetic diversity that protects them against disease. The grapes are intensely aromatic, resistant to heat, and naturally rich in sugar.
Like Port, Madeira, and Sherry, Moscatel (the Portuguese spelling of Muscatel) is a fortified wine. Brandy is added to halt fermentation before the yeast converts all the grape sugar into alcohol, preserving a lush natural sweetness.
The Moscatel made in Setúbal has been cherished for centuries for its remarkable aging potential. As it matures in oak casks, approximately 2 to 3 percent of the wine evaporates each year—a phenomenon whimsically known as the “angel’s share.” This gradual loss intensifies the wine, concentrating its sugar and acidity and deepening its character.
José Maria da Fonseca, founded in 1834, is one of Portugal’s most famous wine producers. In 1849, it introduced Periquita, the first branded Portuguese red wine. Just a few years later, in 1855, it earned a gold medal at the Paris World Exposition for its Moscatel de Setúbal. Today, the company has over two million liters of Moscatel patiently waiting in barrels for their moment to shine.
In the 19th century, José Maria da Fonseca shipped barrels of Moscatel by sailboat to Brazil, India, and Africa. Occasionally, unsold barrels made their way back, and, to everyone’s surprise, the wine had improved. The heat and humidity of the sea voyage had accelerated the aging process, delivering in just one year the complexity that would have taken a decade to develop on land. Since 2000, the winery has revived this maritime tradition. Its “torna viagem” (roundtrip) Moscatel now sails aboard the Sagres, a majestic Portuguese Navy training ship, before being bottled as a coveted limited edition.
Unlike table wines, which are bottled in dark glass to protect them from light, Moscatel de Setúbal comes in clear bottles. Light exposure helps foster the oxidation that is key to its unique aging process.
We tasted three Moscatel wines from José Maria da Fonseca’s Alambre brand. The first was the classic Alambre Moscatel: a liquid dessert with a vibrant orange hue and flavors of orange, honey, and caramel, seasoned with a hint of lemon zest.
Next, we tried a five-year-old Moscatel made from a rare regional mutation of Muscat—the purple muscat—a grape unique to Setúbal. The wine had a deeper hue and a complex profile: tangerine, apricot, lime, melon, honey, and caramel woven with exotic hints of incense, red pepper, and turmeric.
Our tasting ended with the forty-year-old Alambre. It has a deep color and a taste infused with the distinct aroma of Brazilian oak. The aging process adds complexity to this extraordinary wine, enriching the caramel and honey notes with dried fruits, figs, cloves, and cinnamon flavors.
Whenever we crave an effortless dessert, we reach for a chilled bottle of Moscatel. As the legendary jazz singer Jon Hendricks once put it, “I can’t get well without muscatel.” We couldn’t agree more.
We first met Eduardo in 2019, when he was the head enologist at Herdade da Calada. His life had been marked by tragedy—his wife had passed away, and he found himself raising their three young daughters alone. Seeking a fresh start, he returned to his roots in the Douro Valley and purchased Quinta da Peónia, a historic one-hectare vineyard planted in 1930. It is an estate with a human scale, allowing Eduardo, with the help of his daughters, to handle every step of production—from grafting vines to foot-treading grapes and bottling the wines.
He named this deeply personal project Grande Desafio, meaning “great challenge.” His goal is to create the ultimate handcrafted wines. In 2023, after years of dedication, Eduardo bottled his first vintage—5,000 precious bottles.
Perched on a plateau 550 meters above sea level, Quinta da Peónia is blessed with schist and clay soils. Unlike the famed, fast-draining schist of Foz Côa, Peónia’s porous schist retains water through the winter, naturally sustaining the vines during the dry summer months without irrigation. The altitude brings freshness, while the old vines add remarkable depth and complexity.
Eduardo’s winemaking philosophy focuses on low alcohol and minimal extraction, resulting in light, elegant wines that dance on the palate with remarkable finesse. These wines are rare finds—if you come across a bottle, take it home and treasure it.
Francisco Melícias, the general manager of Quinta de São Sebastião, invited us to visit the estate. So, we traveled along narrow roads that wind through villages where houses are nestled among vineyards until we arrived at Arruda dos Vinhos. This historic town, established in 1160 by Portugal’s first king, owes its name, “wine route,” to its role as a transit point for wines transported by horse-drawn carts to Lisbon.
Arruda’s soils, predominantly limestone and clay with patches of sand, create ideal conditions for viticulture. Limestone promotes deep root growth and imparts minerality and acidity to the wines, while clay retains water, adding richness and structure. The region’s rolling hills and refreshing Atlantic breezes lend complexity to its wines.
The town is steeped in history and faith. São Sebastião, its patron saint, is credited with three miracles. First, in the 14th century, Arruda was spared from the bubonic plague that devastated much of Portugal. Second, in 1755, the town escaped the earthquake, tsunami, and fires that reduced nearby Lisbon to ruins, prompting King José I and his family to seek refuge in Arruda. Third, in the late 18th century, the region’s sand patches protected its vineyards from the phylloxera pest that devastated European vineyards.
Our journey continued up a steep hill to Quinta de São Sebastião, an estate established in 1755. We visited the chapel, once part of a monastery founded by monks who sought peaceful retreat. Francisco tells us that during the Napoleonic invasions, the estate played a role in the Lines of Torres Vedras, a network of fortifications built in 1809–1810 to defend Lisbon against Napoleon’s troops. Today, the remnants of these fortifications are a reminder of the estate’s historical importance.
In the 1980s, António Parente, an industrialist, bought Quinta de São Sebastião and invested in its future. The vineyards, planted on steep hills with different exposures, offer diverse terroirs that allow winemaker Filipe Sevinate Pinto to create distinctive blends. These wines combine traditional local varietals like Touriga Nacional with carefully selected French grapes.
We sampled some remarkable wines in the estate’s tasting room, which overlooks a picturesque riding arena where horses are trained. The 2022 Reserva Branco, a blend of Arinto, Cercial, and Sauvignon Blanc, has a pleasurable intensity and minerality. The Sauvignon Blanc provides a seasoning touch that allows the blend to shine. A surprising single-varietal made from Cercial, a grape known as Esgana-Cão in the Douro Valley, impressed us with its elegance and freshness. The Provence-style rosé, Dona Aninhas, pays tribute to António Parente’s mother with its delightful balance and vibrant acidity.
We also tried three reds. The first, a Reserva, is a blend of Touriga Nacional, Merlot, and Sousão. The aromatic Touriga complements the delicate Merlot, while the lively Sousão provides a touch of exuberance. The second, a blend of Alicante Bouschet and Syrah is intense, offering a beautiful harmony of flavors. Finally, the Grande Reserva—a daring mix of Merlot and Sousão— captivated us with its depth, complexity, and character. This wine is an ode to joy!
Quinta de São Sebastião is building on its rich heritage to create wines that are distinctive and deeply enjoyable.
Quinta de São Sebastião is situated in Arruda dos Vinhos. Click here for their website.
“When my father came home from work, he would spend hours studying military maps,” recalls Jorge Rosas, the CEO of Ramos Pinto, a port wine house founded in 1880 by his great-grandfather, Adriano Ramos Pinto. “He was searching for the perfect farm in the Douro Superior, a region he believed could produce exceptional wines like the legendary Barca Velha.”
Sitting on the floor with an old magnifying glass that had lost its handle, Jorge’s father, José António, pored over contour lines in search of flat land. He wanted to find terrain that was easier to cultivate than the steep slopes that dominate the Douro Valley. From Friday to Sunday, José António drove through rustic roads, to visit locations he had marked on the maps.
One day, crossing a remote mountain path, he found his dream farm. “Shangri-La!” he exclaimed. The estate, then planted with cereals, was called Ervamoira. It was love at first sight—a love so strong that his wife often felt jealous of the farm. Determined to buy it, José António contacted the owners in Lisbon. Despite having little attachment to the estate, they hesitated to sell a property that had been in their family for generations.
An avid trout fisherman, José António donned his fishing gear to fish in the rivers that cross Ervamoira, the Coa, and the Douro, even though he knew they had no trouts. Fishing was merely an excuse to immerse himself in the landscape, imagining the vineyards he might one day plant.
In the aftermath of the 1974 revolution, many farms were nationalized. Fearing expropriation, the owners of Ervamoira agreed to sell. Despite his family’s concerns about buying an estate amid so much uncertainty, José António seized the opportunity. “My father is a cereal killer,” jokes Jorge, alluding to how the cereal fields were soon replaced with vineyards.
At Ervamoira, José António introduced innovative viticultural practices. He assigned each grape varietal to a separate plot. Instead of using traditional terraces, he planted vines on platforms that facilitate mechanization. High-density planting forced roots to delve deep for nutrients, enhancing quality through higher polyphenol content and increasing drought resistance.
But a shadow loomed over paradise. In the early 1990s, plans resurfaced to construct a hydroelectric dam that would flood the estate. Horrified, José António fought tirelessly against this project. The discovery of a Roman tomb and ancient coins on the property provided fleeting hope, but archaeologists deemed the finds insufficient to halt the dam project.
Desperate, José António entered his wines into international competitions, receiving numerous awards. But not even these accolades could stop the project. “What now?” he wondered. “Only a miracle can save the farm,” his cousin, João Nicolau de Almeida, remarked.
Then, a miracle happened. Archaeologists discovered prehistoric cave engravings near Ervamoira. An expert who secretly evaluated the site revealed that the engravings are about 30,000 years old. It was widely assumed that outdoor prehistoric art couldn’t survive millennia of exposure to the elements. Ervamoira proved otherwise.
The discovery attracted the attention of the Portuguese media but failed to sway the government. Deliverance came from an unexpected source. A Portuguese émigré, who had been Jacqueline Kennedy’s butler, read about the engravings in a local newspaper. He shared the news with an acquaintance at The New York Times, and the newspaper published an article titled “Vast Stone Age Art Gallery Is Found but Dam May Flood It.” The story sparked an international outcry that led to the abandonment of the dam project.
Today, Ervamoira thrives. Its grapes contribute to the iconic Duas Quintas wines, made from a blend of grapes from two farms—Ervamoira and Bons Ares. The schist soils of Ervamoira, at 150 meters altitude, lend structure, while Bons Ares, perched at 550 meters with limestone soils, adds refreshing acidity.
Ervamoira’s magic is unmistakable. Nestled in the remote Douro Superior beyond the Cachão da Valeira—a region inaccessible until Queen Maria I spearheaded efforts to make the Douro River navigable—it is a gem of the Douro Valley, a dream that a miracle made come true.
Please click here for information on how to visit Ervamoira.
Salt of Portugal 