For The Love Of Port

I'm headed to Pinhao and the Vintage Hotel the first week in October for 4 nights.
1. Is it necessary to make a reservation to visit port quintas?
2. Which of the port quinta's on the Douro are absolute "musts" to see?
3. Besides enjoying port, what are any other "musts" within a one hour drive from Pinhao?
4. If possilbe I'd love to "stomp" some grapes. Does anyone know the best way to make arrangements to do so and at what quintas?

1. Is it necessary to make a reservation to visit port quintas?
For most, yes. You can get a brochure at the tourism office with the quinta's participating in the Port Wine Route. In there you can find if you need to make a reservation. Not all quinta's participate in the route, however. So, if you want to visit a particular quinta, it is best to call in advance. Some quinta's do not allow visitors at all (e.g. Noval, all quinta's of the Symingtons), so unless you have connections there, they are impossible to visit.


2. Which of the port quinta's on the Douro are absolute "musts" to see?
If you can get an appointment: Quinta do Crasto.
If you have connections: Quinta do Vesuvio, Quinta dos Malvedos, Quinta de Vargellas, Quinta do Noval (those are all on my 'wish list' )
If you want it the easy way: Quinta de la Rosa, Quinta do Portal, Quinta do Panascal, Quinta do Passadouro. All offer a tour and provide a good tasting room, although Panascal is very touristic and doensn't offer anything interesting to drink.


3. Besides enjoying port, what are any other "musts" within a one hour drive from Pinhao?
Pinhao isn't exactly the most exciting place on earth. You can take a boat tour on the river, or take the train along the Douro, either in the direction of the Douro Superior or in the direction of Regua / Porto. Both beautiful.
In Regua (also not a very special town) you can visit the Solar do Vinho do Porto, where they have some fine ports on the list, and it includes a nice excibition on the history of port wine.
Near Vila Nova do Foz Coa (in the Douro Superior, about 1,5 hours drive) there is the archeological park of Coa, where rock art of about 10,000 years old can be seen. You can visit it by guided tour (reservations needed). You can also combine your tour with a visit to Quinta da Ervamoira (of Ramos Pinto), that has a museum with it. You can ask for this while you make your reservation for the tour in the park.

4. If possilbe I'd love to "stomp" some grapes. Does anyone know the best way to make arrangements to do so and at what quintas?
I don't know much about that. If you call quinta's for appointments, it is probably best to just ask about it.
But I don't know if there is still a lot of harvesting going on early october. Because of the heat and drought, the harvest started already in the first week of september at most quinta's. But this varies of course between different sub regions and quinta's, so it is best to just inform what the planning is if you try to make an appointment.

Hope this helps a bit. Have fun!

Ronnie, thanks for the great advice. I've been doing a fair amount of "surfing" teh web and concluded that I should probably spend some time in Porto visiting the lodges. I believe it's a relatively easy drive between Pinhao and Porto so it shouldn't be much of a problem. Only a couple more weeks...can't wait.

Keep in mind that it will take you some 2.5 to 3 hours to get from Porto to Pinhão...for a day trip that might be to much.
If I had to choose between visiting lodges or quintas, I'd go for quintas without hesitation. For some it might take some phonecalls, but it will be worth it! However, the tour at Ramos Pinto in VNdG is not to be missed.

I'd recommend taking the train from Porto to Pinhao or the other direction. Please let us know how you enjoyed your trip. Sorry you missed ours a few weeks later.

How did you enjoy your stay in the Douro? Tasted anything nice?

I actually really liked Pinhao. While it's not a booming metropolis, there are many things happening there that seemed interesting. If you stand on the sidewalk in the middle of town during the harvest season, you can watch the steady stream of grape trucks coming from every direction, filled with crates of red and white grapes just picked in the fields and heading to a Quinta for processing. The train station has incredible azueljos tile murals that depict different scenes from Douro Valley. You can go down to the docks in Pinhao and take a barcos rabelo or other boat further up the Douro river. There are a few times a day the boats leave, but I think you can probably negotiate an extra trip if they aren't busy.

The Douro Valley was definitely where we had the best experiences. While the Port houses in Porto were fun and interesting, they definitely felt touristy. There was almost no one in the Douro Valley in late September, and the harvest was in full swing. Every quinta we visited was bustling with the harvest. At Quinta do Panascal, one of Fonseca's quintas, we found the treaders busy treading grapes to live accordion music. A truck of pickers pulled up at lunch time and the whole crowd retreated to the dining room for a family-style lunch. We were envious! We saw one other couple leaving Quinta do Panascal, but otherwise we really didn't see anyone at the Quintas. For novices like ourselves, even Quinta do Panascal was interesting. They give you a walkman with a self-guided tour of the vineyards. It was informative for us and it began our Port learning before we headed to the other quintas.

Quinta da Pacheca is a good bet for being able to tread grapes. We had an incredible opportunity to join them treading after setting up a wine tasting appointment thru the Port Wine Institute in Regua. They're friendly, and I suspect they're pretty good business people. I got the sense they've figured out that the tourists love to do this, and they offer you the opportunity quite willingly.

As for hotels, while we enjoyed our stay at the pousada Solar de Rede, we'll definitely be staying at the Vintage Hotel in Pinhao if we go back. It looks like an incredible place, and it's just off the river. The solitude of Pinhao with easy access to trains and boats makes it an ideal location. It's an easy drive from Pinhao back to Regua, as well as further up the Douro Valley.

One point I forgot to mention about Pinhao. There's a small town just across the river (not the Douro, but a smaller river) from Pinhao, where Magellan was born. It's not much to see, but it's a sleepy little village and might be an interesting walk from Pinhao.

Thanks Lauren and welcome aboard. Glad to have a local Port wine enthusiast join our midst. Pinhao is a magical area as is the Douro in a broader sense. Hopefully you will be able to revisit the Douro at some point in the future. Let me know, I may be able to help.