Location location location

The ancient Romans knew a thing or two about a good location. Two thousand years ago they tramped along Europe’s western edge, founded Porto and planted vines by the Douro River. The town eventually give its name to the wine produced here – and to a new country. 

By the Middle Ages, Portuguese trade had created the jaunty old town you see today, clinging to a rocky gorge in a tumble of churches and guildhalls. Then baroque-era renovators came along with their fairy-floss towers, art treasures and taste for pink excess. They crammed Porto’s churches with gold looted from the Americas and the dusty bones of city notables.

Today, Porto’s old town has a shabby elegance and isn’t done yet. Down at the riverfront, the young gossip in the wine bars of a town that has rediscovered its mojo. Restaurants are acquiring degustation menus, and accommodations such as The Yateman Hotel, with its cool white-and-lemon décor and light-flooded rooms, are providing contemporary chic.

People on rivers never stop – something new always comes floating along. Porto’s new energy is rippling through the Douro Valley that it commands too. This was once a lost corner of northeast Portugal known only to doddering British tourists, sitting like lizards in the sun and drinking cheap, old-fashioned port.

Now a new generation of winemakers has made the fortified wine lighter and fruitier and started making other wines with indigenous grape varieties such as Malvasia Fina, Gouveio and Rabitago. International wine critics are paying attention. So are discerning travellers. The oldest demarcated wine region in the world (officially established in 1756) now features hip architect-designed cellar doors and Michelin-starred restaurants.

The port action happens at Vila Nova de Gaia across the river from Porto – stroll across on the impressive iron bridge designed by Gustav Eiffel. Waterside cellar doors are hard to miss, since the names of famous port producers Porto Ramos, Croft, Taylor’s and Sandeman are emblazoned in white across red-tiled roofs. Lurk among the giant barrels and you can familiarise yourself with the subtleties of vintage, ruby and tawny port varieties.

Taking a river cruise is one way of exploring the Douro River, but driving is easy, distances short (it’s only 200 kilometres upriver to the Spanish border) and you can meander at will. Head upstream and Régua is where wine country begins – locals poetically claim the best wine is produced from vines that can ‘hear’ the river flowing. Hillsides rise precipitously from the water’s edge, terraced by a thousand years of diligent farmers and planted with vines and silvery olive trees. 

Hairpin bends lead you high above the river to the vineyards of Mateus, one of Portugal’s best-known wine labels. The estate boasts a bijou baroque palace surrounded by cypress-dotted gardens where you can almost lean over the balustrades and pluck Tinta Roriz grapes from the vines. In autumn, layers of terraces are flamboyant in orange and red.

Beyond Vega de Teron, the Douro reduces to an unnavigable ribbon of a river separating Portugal and Spain. Unless you head across the border (and maybe you should, since the fantastic medieval university town of Salamanca isn’t far away) you’ll now have to retrace your route back downstream. Given the scenery, that isn’t a chore, and you can stop at alternative destinations on the way back.

The upper Douro is a grand encore – more fjord than valley, with plunging granite cliffs where fish eagles drift on rising air. By the time you reach Ferradosa the vineyards have returned and you can stop off for a wine tasting at a local quinta or farmhouse. Further downstream, tour the vineyards at Quinta da Roêda, owned by venerable port firm Croft, and taste port afterwards in the old stables. In the harvest season, you can even clamber into the granite tanks and help tread grapes.

You’re back now in the heart of wine country on a stretch of river considered to have the region’s best soil and climate. 

Stay at Vintage House Hotel for a gastronomic experience with a side of river views. Next day, visit the train station in Pinhão, notable for its traditional blue-and-white azulejos tiles showing wine harvest scenes. 

Stylish cellar doors, chic hotels and Michelin-star restaurants now grace the Douro Valley as never before. If you want to pamper yourself, stay at Six Senses Douro Valley, which brings an Asian sensibility and extravagant spa to a terracotta manor house in the vineyards. You might even be served by a local winemaker moonlighting as a sommelier in its restaurant.

Next day, ascend the hills to Lamego, where bishops ruled the roost in the bad old days, spending alms on castles and campaniles. Gargoyles leer at passers-by and pigeons bathe in ornate public fountains. Sunlight splashes across old walls like the sparkling Raposeira wine for which Lamego is famous.

This is an important pilgrimage site too – old ladies in shawls send whispers around the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Remedies, having hobbled up 700 steps from the town in an agony of staid black stockings and arthritis. If you aren’t feeling pious, you can satisfy the flesh at a local bakery, where you’ll find marzipan and almond biscuits and custard tarts hot from the oven. In this part of the world, temptation is everywhere, so you might as well indulge.