After a very active day with a lengthy walking tour on our first full day in Porto, Portugal, we decided to make our Sunday a bit more relaxed. After attending a late morning Mass at the Cathedral, just across the plaza from our apartment, and enjoying pastéis de nata, coffee and people-watching at a friendly neighborhood café, we decided to spend the afternoon visiting some of the famous port houses on the south bank of the Douro River.

We strolled across the Dom Luís I Bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia, the “new city” which houses most of the warehouses and cellars of the oldest and most well-known port producers of the Douro region. “New,” of course, is a relative term here, meaning the development of this side of the river occurred after the north side, Oporto, had already existed for a few centuries. Its age is evident in the thick stone walls and tiled roofs of the still-used warehouses and in the walls lining the narrow cobbled lanes and streets.  

We chose to visit just a few of the many cellars, starting high on the hill at Taylor Fladgate, established in 1692.    One enters a beautiful courtyard shaded by a grape arbor and surrounded by well-maintained buildings and gardens. We opted to skip the tour and made straight for the modern, elegant tasting room    to try several vintage and non-vintage ports alongside some nibbles of cheese and crackers.    Taylor’s offers an assortment of flights and several food options, and between the four of us we managed to sample several wines. No surprise here: the vintage and more aged ports proved the smoothest and most refined (and expensive!).

We then moved down the hill a ways to the oldest port house still active today: Croft, established in 1588. One might guess that its tasting room and cellars reside in the original structures: enormous stones pave the road outside the building,   and thick stone walls line the interior, with blackened beams and rafters arched overhead.

Croft tasting room

Large barrels and puncheons rim the space, which offers tables and seating crafted from old barrels. I imagine it would be a cozy space, with a fire in the fireplace, on a cold winter’s day, but on this beautiful fall afternoon we settled at a table outside on the terrace and enjoyed more port and charcuterie and views across the river. Perhaps it was the ambience, perhaps the port, but I think Croft was my favorite of the port houses we visited; it was welcoming and laid-back and unpretentious.

Finally, we made our way down nearly to the riverside to visit a much newer port house (established in 1989) that had been recommended to us by friends who had visited here last spring. On our way, we passed some quite modern street art, a painted mural   and a whimsical, three-story rabbit sculpted out of recycled metal and plastic occupying the corner of a building.     It’s not just about tile work here!

We chose to take the tour of the cellars at Quinta dos Corvos, which proved intimate and informative and provided the perspective of port production from a smaller, newer maker which prides itself on a very hands-on and sustainable approach. I appreciated the display of the different varieties of port and wine they produced, clearly showing the range in colors of ruby and tawny ports and wine.   After passing the barrels aging in the cellar,     we moved on to tasting in the bright, modern tasting room.

I wish I could say that we enjoyed all the wines we tasted that day and purchased several bottles to take home, but the reality is that the cost of shipping it home is prohibitive, and we hadn’t made allowances to carry it ourselves. We’ll have to plan more strategically on our next visit!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor