We woke up to yet another rainy day. The forecast is promising better weather in the afternoon. If not sunny, with a last bit of rain overnight and tomorrow morning. Hopefully we’ll be able to leave all that wetness behind. Since today is mostly a driving day, it’s not a big deal.
We checked out of our Airbnb and went for brunch at 📍CA Downtown. While much of it was the traditional American brunch (I did have chicken and waffles and Karine a French toast with bacon) they did it well. Their menu is short, the food well executed with just a little bit of flair, and the coffee is good. Everything we need to fuel up for the 2-hour drive to Pinhão along the Douro river.
After breakfast we took the metro back to the airport. We’ve learned early in our travel that it’s easier to get a car from the local airport than in the city. Most of the time the airport is well connected to the highway infrastructure, not stuck in the middle of tight and busy streets designed before the advent of cars. Plus, they have huge parking lots which mean they very rarely run out of cars or have to go pickup a car somewhere else.
As we arrived at the airport the sun was coming out, earlier than expected and very welcome. We were guided to the shuttle that brought us to the rental place. After a ridiculous amount of typing on a computer, we were “upgraded” to a small-ish SUV: a Renault Symbioz. As usual we reserved a compact car with manual transmission. And as with most of our reservations in Europe, we mysteriously got upgraded to the first car available with an automatic transmission. It’s either incredible luck or… maybe they feel people with my accent don’t really know how to drive a manual transmission car.
With the car rental completed. We hopped in the car and headed east. It didn’t take long for us to catch up with the rain. We had limited views and, at times, torrential rain with very low visibility. Not the kind of weather anyone wants when going to a small village in wine country. But, not long after arriving, the sky cleared and we enjoyed that sunny and warm temperature we were hopping for.
Pinhão is a small village but, being in wine country, is full of quinta (estates) and their wine shops. Great for us as we arrived in mid-afternoon and, while our initial plan was to go for a hike, we abandoned the plan due to the large amount of rain. It was going to be very muddy.
📍Quinta da Foz is just across a small affluent of the Douro that marks the border of Pinhão. It’s also a convenient 7-minute walk from our guesthouse. As it’s currently harvest season (August through October) most quinta won’t let you book a visit. Out of all we contacted in the last couple days only one replied to let us know they are too busy. 📍Quinta da Foz being opened and offering visits and tasting was really all we needed. Being walking distance from our guesthouse meant we would both be able to taste.
When we arrived at 📍Quinta da Foz and asked for a tasting we were informed that a group was finishing its visit and we could join them for the tasting portion of the tour and could do the tour after the tasting if we wanted. To be honest, we were not even a little interested in the tour. Wine tours are pretty much always the same thing: here are the fields; it’s a small field and we have more elsewhere in the region. Here is were we take the harvested grapes and smash them, our particular quinta does it all with bare feet. Finally here are barrels and here is where we bottle the product.
The tasting was with other people. We were offered a rosé that’s the spitting image of a white. It only looks like a rosé when it’s in the bottle, next to a white sheet of paper while squinting the right way. Nevertheless, it tasted good. We continued with a white and then three reds concluding with a 30-year port. All in all we’ve had about two and a half glasses of wine in less than an hour. During that time we managed to learn that they press the grape with their feet (the traditional way) and that the harvest in the Douro valley goes from top of the valley to the bottom. The white wine grapes are at the top so they get less warmth resulting in less sugar in the grapes and thus a lighter more mineral wine. At the bottom of the valley are the red wine grapes obviously.
Slightly buzzed from our tasting we went back home to chill on the terrace before dinner at 📍Bomfim 1896, the Michelin recommended restaurant in the village. Somewhat surpringly, it’s the fanciest place we’ve been on our trip thus far (when the server puts on a white glove just to bring you your wine glass, you know it’s fancy). We opted for the tasting menu. We enjoyed everything that was served but regretted a little not going à la carte as the tasting portions where quite a bit smaller than we expected. So good variety but needs 50% bigger portions.
Tomorrow we’re heading out to see 20,000 year old carvings. Fingers crossed for the weather to be on our side.