If you're planning a wine trip to the Douro Valley, odds are good one of the earliest questions will be about where to stay.
The good news is that the Douro Valley has numerous options for all budgets and interests. The bad news is that the Douro Valley is, in a word, massive, and driving around the steep patamares can be quite challenging and, just as important, time consuming.
So in this one, we want to take a look at some considerations for choosing where to stay in the Douro Valley!
Touriga Nacional is one of those Portuguese grapes that needs a bit of time. In fact, we're so used to seeing this one in aged port over a still wine that the age often comes naturally.
So when we got lucky enough to find two bottles of UDACA Dao Touriga Nacional 2014 on clearance at a local wine shop, we grabbed both with one to enjoy now and one to age.
This is an important distinction, because at 10 years old this one was only starting to show its potential!
Madeira is one of my favorite fortified wines, and when it comes to a style that goes with just about everything, we almost always reach for a Boal.
This particular bottle from Cossart Gordon was an interesting one because it was perhaps the most aged Boal we've had yet. At 15 years it hit all the right notes of fruit, nuts, and more!
When we visited Douro Valley wineries on our trip around Portugal, we knew we had to taste, and subsequently purchase, many vintage Ports.
Our goal for these wines are to age them to their absolute best, which likely means holding on to many until they're 30, 40, or 50+ years old.
But a few years after we got back, we decided to open a bottle to help a friend taking the WSET Diploma D5 exam (fortified wines). As we had two bottles of Quinta Nova's 2000 Vintage Port, we thought it'd be a good opportunity to see how this one was faring at 23 years old.
It was still incredibly youthful!
It is not terribly common to find a rose made from popular red grapes from the Douro Valley like Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz, but Quinta do Tedo did just that with their rose blend.
This one hits on all the notes we love in a good rose, with a nice balance between fruit and floral notes all around. Not bad at all for its reasonable price point!
After visiting Portugal, we were fully convinced that the best bottles of still wine generally have a hard time making their way out of the country on the export market. The bottles that we do get abroad are, well, simply not a showcase of the potential of the country.
Thankfully, this is changing, and some companies are able to get gems that show off the best of Portugal.
Morgado do Quintao's Branco is one such bottle, and this one, made with Crato Branco (also known as Alva and Roupeiro), is quite the delicious find.
Quinta do Portal was one of our favorite Douro Valley wineries that we got to visit during our trip to Portugal, and naturally many of their bottles made its way home to us when the trip ended.
One such bottle was Quinta do Portal's 20 year tawny port, a lovely bottle that hit all the notes we love in a tawny with strong chocolate covered cherry flavors.
We really do love this one!
When you think of port, odds are good your mind goes to that high-alcohol, intensely sweet, red wine from the Douro Valley.
But the Douro Valley makes more than fortified red wine, and also makes some stellar white ports with the same age indications you would expect from a tawny port (10, 20, 30, and 40 year).
During our visit to the Douro Valley, we were fortunate enough to try several white ports from producers and one, Quinta do Portal, had a truly exceptional 10 year white that we had to bring home with us. After a few years in our cellar, we opened it up to celebrate a birthday!
The Douro Valley in Portugal is known for creating sweet, fortified wines loved the world over. But in recent decades, producers are also using the native grapes of Portugal into creating some intense, full bodied wines.
Quinta do Tedo is one such winery that makes still wines from their grapes, and the Reserva bottle from the Savedra plot is a field blend of roughly two dozen native grapes thrown into one compelling mix.
If you like full-bodied red wines, this one is for you.
The Douro Valley of Portugal is one of the most famous wine regions in the world for its stellar fortified wine, views, and proximity to the city of Porto in northern Portugal.
All of these elements come together to make the region a must-see destination for many travelers to the country. We personally have visited the Douro Valley and consider it to be one of, if not our very favorite, wine region we have ever been to (and we don't make that distinction lightly).
That being said, planning a visit to the Douro Valley can be tricky and there are many important things in mind. So in this Douro Valley wine tour guide we thought we'd share key details that will help you visit the Douro Valley and get the most out of your stay!