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.
Jorge Seródio Borges and Sandra Tavares da Silva, the husband-and-wife team behind Wine & Soul, craft some of the Douro Valley’s most iconic wines—among them the extraordinary Guru, Pintas, and Manoella Vinhas Velhas. Jorge’s roots in the valley run deep: his family has been making wine there for five generations.
His mother, Maria Doroteia, devoted her life to teaching the children of the Douro Valley how to read and write. She also has a deep love for animals; at 87 years of age, she still tends to ten hens, who reward her with fresh eggs.
Maria Doroteia is renowned for her cooking. When Jorge and his sister were little, she would bake biscuits and hide them away in tins. As soon as the children caught the first whiff of the delicious aromas, they would set off on a treasure hunt until they found the precious trove of cookies, savoring them with delight.
We recently had the joy of having lunch with Maria Doroteia. With her characteristic generosity, she shared one of her cherished recipes, which we are happy to pass on to you, dear reader.
Douro Biscuits
Ingredients
230 g self-raising flour
200 g sugar
1 egg
80 g butter
90 g cocoa
Instructions
Mix the sugar, egg, and butter.
Add the flour and cocoa, mixing well.
Let the dough rest for 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Roll out on a marble surface until paper-thin.
Cut with a cookie cutter and bake at a low temperature until crisp.
The tomato is a South American fruit that traveled to Europe on sailboats in the 16th century and, over time, conquered the cuisines of the Old World. Like travelers who adapt to foreign lands, tomatoes developed distinct characteristics in different regions. In the Douro Valley, the warm days, cool nights, well-drained soils, and abundant micronutrients produce tomatoes with exceptional flavor, texture, and succulence.
Every year, on the third Friday of August, the Douro Valley comes alive with a festival dedicated to the heirloom tomato. Winemakers submit tomatoes grown in their vegetable gardens to this friendly competition, an opportunity to enjoy some light-hearted fun before the serious work of the harvest begins. Renowned chefs like Miguel Castro e Silva prepare the food and vintners pour their wines, creating a festive atmosphere.
The tomatoes are served at peak ripeness, blessed with a pinch of Castro Marim sea salt, and anointed with sacred olive oils from the Douro Valley. A panel of judges, composed of chefs and food experts, conducts a rigorous blind tasting to elect the finest tomatoes.
This year, a small producer, Casa da Quinta dos Ferreiros took first place. Wine & Soul, acclaimed for their iconic Pintas and Guru wines, received second place. Third place was awarded to the Mateus Palace.
The festival is open to the public. If you dream of mingling with famous chefs and winemakers at a picturesque Douro Valley estate, mark your calendar for the third Friday of August. You can email greengrape@greengrape.pt to join the mailing list. One word of advice: once you receive your invitation in late July, answer immediately—the event sells out in less than an hour!
Victorian novels describe picnics where friends have a grand time, enjoying delicious food in idyllic settings. But real-life picnics seldom measure up to these literary accounts. Sometimes, the sun is too harsh, and the shade is scarce. Other times, it is cold, the wind blows disagreeably, or the rain intrudes. Wine and beer are lukewarm by the time they are served. Sitting is uncomfortable, and troupes of insects join the party.
When our friend Abílio Tavares da Silva invited us for a picnic, we braced ourselves for the usual woes. But, as soon as we arrived at his Douro Valley estate, it was clear that this would be no ordinary affair.
It was a midsummer day with clear skies and a gentle breeze. Spacious wooden tables with comfortable benches awaited the lucky guests under the shade of two majestic linden trees. The view, with the Douro River stretching out in all its splendor, was worthy of being painted by Turner.
The picnic basket, prepared by the talented Rosário Buia at Toca da Raposa, was brimming with delicacies. There were farinheira tarts, shrimp rissoles, oranges seasoned with olive oil and minced garlic, chickpea salad, carrot and zucchini rice, olives, freshly baked bread, and a tortilla prepared with eggs so delicious that they were surely laid by the happiest of chicken.
The food was served in colorful pottery designed by the 19th-century master ceramist Rafael Bordallo Pinheiro. Abílio’s alluring Foz Torto white wine, made from precious old vines in Porrais, was poured into crystal glasses at the ideal temperature.
The conversation flowed as freely as the food and the wine. The meal ended late in the afternoon with slices of Toca da Raposa’s famous drunken cake (bolo borrachão) accompanied by glasses of chilled 20-year-old Fonseca tawny port. Not even Jane Austen could imagine such a perfect picnic.
One of the Douro Valley’s ultimate experiences is visiting Quinta do Vale Meão. While the estate is not generally open to the public, it does receive a few small groups each year. You can email in advance to inquire whether they can host you.
Vale Meão was the last estate planted by the legendary Dona Antónia Ferreira. It was a colossal endeavor: 300 hectares of wild bush were converted into vineyards and olive groves. Dona Antónia invested in the remote Vale Meão against the advice of her general manager because of its unique characteristics. It is located on a geological fault with three different types of soil: schist, granite, and sedimentary clay deposited by the river. The weather is dry, as clouds rarely cross the Marvão mountain, reducing the prevalence of vine diseases like oidium.
The best way to reach Vale Meão is by taking the train from Pinhão to Pocinho. There are usually few passengers, so you can choose a seat by the riverside and enjoy a glorious hour beholding the Douro river in all its splendor. The train rushes through bridges and tunnels carved into granite hills, but the river is seldom out of sight.
You go by Cachão da Valeira, a treacherous spot before dams regulated the water flow. Here, Dona Antónia and the Baron of Forrester, another eminent figure of the Douro Valley, fell into the river in a boating accident. Dona Antónia survived, but the Baron drowned. The locals say in jest that her voluminous skirt saved her, while the Baron sank because his pockets were filled with gold coins.
Maria Ferreira, a former teacher who oversees enotourism at Vale Meão, picked us up at the Pocinho train station in a vintage Land Rover. Though not related to Dona Antónia, Maria speaks about the estate with such passion it feels as though she is part of the family. An eagle followed the Land Rover as we drove through Cortes de Veiga, a village created to house the many laborers who worked at Vale Meão between 1885 and 1887.
The name Meão, which means “middle,” refers to the river encircling the property, making it feel like an island. The vineyards are planted on a magnificent plateau by the river.
Maria took us on an exhilarating safari through the vineyards. We then visited Barca Velha, a cellar built in 1892 named after an old rowboat used to cross the river. Here, Fernando Nicolau d’Almeida crafted the first Barca Velha in 1952, combining grapes from Vale Meão with those grown at higher altitudes in Meda to craft a table wine that became iconic.
Our tour concluded at the main house, constructed by Dona Antónia in 1894. We were warmly received by three of her descendants: Francisco Olazabal, known as Vito, his son Francisco, known as Xito, and his daughter Luísa. They welcomed us with a refreshing white Monte Meão, made from a blend of two grape varietals grown at opposite ends of the estate—Arinto in the sedimentary soils of the north and Rabigato in the schist soils of the south. This wine beautifully showcases the diversity of the terroirs at Vale Meão.
As we talked to Vito, Xito, and Luísa, it became clear that wine is a language to them. Soils and grape varietals are like words that can express human craftsmanship and the whims of the seasons to make wine as fine as poetry. Their passion for wine is only matched by the generosity with which they share the fruits of this extraordinary place with those who visit.
We tasted the Monte Meão Vinha da Cantina, a surprising wine made from baga, a red grape from Bairrada. While in Bairrada, baga produces tannic, robust reds; here, it yields a light (11.5% alcohol), vibrant wine.
Next, we enjoyed a remarkable Monte Meão Touriga Nacional from the granite soils of Vinha dos Novos. It has a crimson color, a delicate floral aroma, and a supine elegance on the palate. It was followed by a beautiful Monte Meão from Casa das Máquinas, home to the estate’s oldest vineyards that combines Touriga Francesa and Tinta Barroca.
The tasting of table wines concluded with two stunning Vale Meão vintages. The 2014 vintage is a complex, alluring wine, and the 2002 vintage is exquisite in its subtlety and refinement.
Then, port wines entered the scene. First, a 10-year-old tawny, which is all that a great tawny can be, offering notes of nuts, coffee, chocolate, and orange rind to enchant the palate. Then, a stunning 1999 colheita, that is richly satisfying.
In 1999, Vito took a significant risk by leaving his safe position as a director at Sogrape, the large wine company that acquired most of Dona Antónia’s properties, to start a new family project under the Vale Meão name. The many accolades earned since then, including inclusion in the Wine Spectator’s list of the world’s top 5 wines, show clearly that the risk paid off. From her celestial vantage point, Dona Antónia must be beaming with pride.
The best partridges we ever tasted were cooked by a professor. His name is Emídio Gomes. He is the rector of the UTAD, the university that trained many of the star enologists who work in the Douro valley.
Emídio learned to cook while studying in France on a meager scholarship. He asked his grandmother to teach him some of her recipes so that he could eat at home. Cooking was so relaxing that he continued to cook regularly after returning to Portugal.
Emídio’s stewed partridges are renowned throughout the Douro valley. The professor generously gave us his grandmother’s recipe and allowed us to share it with our readers.
The recipe starts with an admonition: “If the partridges are good, make sure you don’t ruin them.” Here’s the rest.
Remove the feathers and the tripes of the wild partridges and cut them into pieces. Marinate them for twelve hours in a small amount of white wine, laurel, parsley, and a little thyme.
Heat a cast iron pot. Pour a generous amount of olive oil. The quality of the olive oil is paramount. Choose an olive oil with low acidity, ideally from the Douro valley. Slice enough onions to cover the bottom 2 inches of the pot. Slowly sweat the onions. Remove the thyme, laurel, and parsley, and place the partridges in the pot. Add a small amount of water to prevent the stew from drying.
Cover the pot with the lid and slowly stew the partridges for four to five hours. Monitor periodically to ensure the stew does not dry; add small amounts of water as necessary. Season with salt towards the end of the cooking period. After the first four hours, regularly pierce the meat with a fork. The partridge is ready when the meat offers no resistance. Serve with white rice and toasts.
Like a top scientific paper, the recipe requires high-quality content and flawless execution. And in the end, the results look deceptively simple.
Quinta do Seixo in the Douro valley is a place of timeless beauty. Here’s how Henry Vizetelly described it in his book “Facts about Port and Madeira,” published in 1880:
“It occupies the spurs and slopes of a mountain, one side of which bounds the Douro, and the other the Rio Torto valley. Scattered over the heights above are the white cottages of the village of Valença, the vineyards of which produce a considerable quantity of first-class wine. The buildings of the Quinta do Seixo , which is entered through an imposing gateway, surmounted by the armorial bearings of its owner, are very extensive. The casa is both commodious and well arranged, and has a certain air of pretension about it, while the lagares and the adega are on a scale proportionate to the extent of the surrounding vineyard.”
This description remains remarkably apt. The main house still offers spectacular views of the surrounding vineyards, some of which are centenarian. But Vizetelly would be amazed to see that inside the traditional building, there’s a state-of-the-art winery.
Our guide explained what makes the Douro different: the stone terraces built to support the vines, the “field blends” made from varietals planted together in the vineyards, the poor soils that force the plants to struggle, making the berries small but full of flavor, and the methods used to produce tawnies, vintages, and late-bottled vintages.
She also told us about Georges Sandeman, the Scottish merchant who founded Sandeman in 1790. The company quickly became the largest port-wine shipper. Its mysterious logo, created in 1928, was inspired by its two product lines: ports from Portugal and sherries from Spain. It is a silhouette of a man wearing a Spanish hat and dressed in the cloak used by students in Coimbra, Portugal’s oldest university.
At the end of the tour, we tasted four wines—first, a harmonious white Vinha Grande with fine tannins and a pleasing acidity. Then, an exuberant red Callabriga made with grapes from the Callabriga hill, which was originally planted by the Romans. Next, a delicious 2019 Vintage Port from Quinta do Seixo that tastes even better with a view of the vines that produced it. And, finally, a great Sandeman Vau port wine from the 1999 vintage.
A visit to Quinta do Seixo is a delightful introduction to the wonders of the Douro valley.
We used to buy jams endorsed by the British monarchs, figuring that centuries of sampling jams at tea time gave them the practice required to select the cream of the jam crop.
We quite liked the British jams until one fateful lunch at Toca da Raposa in Ervedosa do Douro. A sampling of jams arrived without fanfare at dessert time. When we tried them, we experienced a whole new level of deliciousness!
What makes these jams so sublime? Their fruit comes from the Douro valley, a place where the scorching summer heat and a wealth of soil micronutrients create unique conditions that intensify aromas and flavors. And each batch is handcrafted by Dona Graça, a legendary cook, and her talented daughter, Rosário. The two leave nothing to chance, shunning the use of preservatives and making adjustments small and large to ensure that the results are perfect.
There is an orange jam chockfull of strips of orange rind that delight the palate and an orange and hot pepper jam with the ideal combination of sugar and spice. There are jars of jam brimming with perfectly ripe whole figs; a surprisingly delicious zucchini jam; amazing jams made with must from grapes used to produce port wine; jams made from a rare peach variety that grows amidst the vines, and much more.
The jams favored by his royal majesty pale by comparison with the wondrous jams from Toca da Raposa! The question is: how do we tell the king?
Toca da Raposa is located at Rua da Praça in Ervedosa do Douro, tel. 254 423 466.
Salt of Portugal 