The Port Wine Road

Port wine, or simply "port" is arguably Portugal's most identifiable product. Every year throngs of tourist flock to Portugal's second city of Porto to tour the port wine cellars of Gaia, the town across the Douro where port wine is aged and bottled. However, the port wine cellars of Gaia are not the only way to enjoy port wine tourism. Just like in the United States, Portugal has its wine roads, and in the north port-lovers can ply the rota do vinho do Porto, or wine route of Porto.

The steep slopes of the Douro Valley are lined with terraced vineyards, creating a striking landscape that no lover of fine wines could fail to love. Better still is the fact that the vineyards of the Douro produce just as much table wine as port wine, a fact well-known inside Portugal but often obscure outside of it. The style of the reds range from light claret-like wines to rich, oaky Burgundy-style wines. Generally speaking, the ground determines what the grapes are ultimately used for. Granite-based soils tend to be used for table wine vines, while the product of schist soils are directed towards port wine. Varietals grown there include Bastardo, Mourisco Tinto, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Francesa and Touriga Nacional for the reds, and Donzelinho Branco, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina, Rabigato, and Viosinho for the whites.

The wine route embraces vineyards both inside and outside the Douro Valley in the Douro Denominação de Origem Controlada (officially denominated control region), or D.O.C. Avid hikers should take note that a path following the route of an abandoned railway allows one to pursue one of the wine routes of Porto on foot. However, the larger route requires a car, as the wine route visits vineyards from Porto all the way to the Spanish border. Accommodations can be booked in farmhouse bed and breakfasts, and in some cases at the wineries themselves.

Some wineries also offer the opportunity to join in on one of the traditional early stages of the winemaking process, namely crushing the grapes under bare feet. To join in on grape crushing means timing your visit to arrive in the mid-autumn, although it is difficult to guarantee being in the right place at the right time for a foot-stomping. Like everything involving agriculture, a variety of only semi-predictable natural factors dictate when to pick the grapes.

Sources: personal experience, http://www.rvp.pt/index.php?op=conteudo&lang=en&id=6