Tour du Vin Trip to Porto & Douro Valley
This October, we took a party of 16 to Porto for our latest Tour du Vin.
The touring group assembled for lunch on the river in Vila Nova de Gaia before an excellent tour and tasting at Ramos Pinto - where we tasted the Douro table wines, as well as a selection of white port, tawny ports and vintage. An excellent start to the trip.
We checked into our hotel - Timbre Virtudes, a fantastic hotel if you are looking for a city break - and we then head out to dinner for an amazing private dining experience at The Largo hotel. Following drinks on the rooftop bar - we sat down and enjoyed an excellent meal. A cracking ending to day 1 of the Tour.
First up on day 2, we head down to the river and jumped onboard a river cruise to check out the 6 Bridges in Porto.
A good chance to clear the heads and delay the tasting kick off a little longer before we head to the iconic Taylor's Port House. We had an excellent guided tour, before an extensive tasting of white port, late bottle vintage port, vintage single quinta port, classic vintage port and then a couple of tawny's.
After a quick white port and tonic on the terrace, we sat down for a traditional Taylor's lunch in their brilliant Barao Fladgate Restaurant - highly recommended if you are in the area!
We then head back down to the river at Vila Nova de Gaia and arrived at Sandeman Port House. An interesting tour, followed by a shorter flight of wines - we enjoyed seeing 'The Don'!
Day 3 and we hit the road to head West into the Douro valley - and visited the famous Quinta do Vallado estate. A very enjoyable tour with 7th generation family member Joao Alvares Ribeiro. Their estate has a fabulous mix of the new and old - and the extensive flight of wines we enjoyed were very well received by the group.
Next up on day 3 was a short car trip down the road, then hopping onto a boat to cross the Douro to our next vineyard - Quinta dos Murças.
We were slightly behind schedule, so went straight into lunch - where we were hosted on their terrace in the gorgeous Autumn sunshine. Magnums of wines kept appearing and the tourists enjoyed the 'meal of the trip' - and all wines went down a treat.
After a lovely long lunch, we jumped back on the boat and head to our last tasting at Quinta de Napoles (Niepoort.) We were fortunate to be shown around by head winemaker - Luis Pedro Silva. It was very interesting to learn about all of the wines that they make - as well as the negotiant business they now run. The highlight of the Niepoort trip was the barrel tasting - where in particular we were lucky to taste the latest vintage of their iconic Coche white wine, as well as Redoma red. What a treat!
We then checked into our final hotel of the trip - 5* Quinta São José do Barrilário Douro Wine Hotel & Spa.
A lovely final dinner with a few end of tour speeches - and probably a few glasses too many of tawny port to sign off with.
A cracking touring party enjoyed an excellent trip - and we now look forward to our next trip to Rioja in April 2026.
If you are interested in joining in on tours in 2026, please contact me on charles.waud@waudwines.com
