Douro upper valley and Port wine

We took a tour into the upper Douro River valley to see the vineyards from whence all that lovely port wine is created.  The lack of what I would call soil and yet hundreds of acres of vines terraced into the steep hillsides is a testament to the tenacity of these people and the grapes themselves.

The oldest vineyards are single lengthy rows of vines and the soiled is chewed-up chist.  The newer terraces have been bulldozed from the hillside and are two lengthy rows of vines just wide enough apart for use of miniature-sized mechanization to help take care of the vines.  The newest vines of all are planted in rows from the top of the hill to the bottom instead of along the contours as they can fit in 1/3 more vines and increase the production levels accordingly.  This also allows the vines to get more consistent sun.

And heat takes on a whole new meaning when you're walking on top of sun-baked chist.  The evaporation rate from my body means drinking copious amounts of water as well as the port wines.  White port and tonic water are incredibly refreshing but I don't know if I can buy white port in the USA.

Our tour was about 50 kilometers up-valley and then an hour trip on the river which had beautiful views of the many, many vineyards.  The Douro used to be a very treacherous trip until the dams and locks were put in and this was the only transportation for the large barrels of port wine to make their way to winery caves at the mouth of this river.

The hospitality of the two vineyards we visited was outstanding.  One of them had already begun a Saturday night family barbecue and insisted we have food as well as his port.  The views were spectacular despite the smoke from the down-valley wildfires.

Our trip back to Oporto took much longer than usual as our guide drove significantly north of the usual route in an effort to avoid the worst of the smoked and fires.  As it was, we had a few views of flaming trees on either side of our route and at one point the trees just by the road were now just vertical glowing sticks of former trees.  That was closer than I liked.

Safely back in Oporto about 23:00 and the next day we made our pilgrimage to the Graham's winery. We treated ourselves to tasting 6 of their ports that we would never buy, not at 100€ per bottle and up.  We enjoyed ourselves for a couple of hours just tasting 6 ports.  They must've have liked us because our guide then offered us a small taste of the 50 year old that was bottled for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.  It was the best, absolutely the best, of flavors and viscosity.  I was born in a very good year!