Wine Tours in Portugal: Grape Times to remember
Wine is an important part of Portugal’s culture and heritage, and Wine Tours in Portugal can be an enjoyable way to get in touch with a fascinating and varied cultural landscape.
Top Wines, Top Tours: an insight into Portugal’s exciting food and wine culture
Portugal can be a fabulous destination, especially for those seeking to add some above-the-average food and wine experiences to their journey. Wine Tours in Portugal offer the discerning traveller a one-of-a-kind opportunity to delve into the diversity and richness of Portugal’s unique food and wine culture. This can be a truly awesome discovery, especially for a relatively small country: superb seafood, the freshest fish, exquisite meat dishes and delicious regional desserts are some of the culinary highlights of a country that sure knows how to please our taste buds. Great food tastes even better with a glass of great wine, and this too you will see if you decide to take an unmatchable wine tour in Portugal.
According to the editors of Wine Spectator, the world’s most influential wine magazine, 2014 was a fantastic year for Portuguese wines: they have chosen no less than 3 Portuguese wines for their Top 5 list of 2014. These world-famous wines are just one reason why visitors want to know more about this unparalleled wine culture, in flavorsome wine tours around Portugal’s best wineries and vineyards. Raise your glass to some of the most incredible and enchanting wine tours in Europe!
Douro Wine Tours: a Tale of Taste and Tradition in the heart of Portugal’s Wine Culture
A place where nature and culture literally embrace and surely one of Portugal’s most stunning landscapes, the Douro valley is the birthplace of some of the world’s best wines and the obvious first stop if you’re looking for an unmissable wine tour in Portugal. This region, where vineyards grow on both sides of a beautiful winding river, is classified as UNESCO World Heritage and was the first wine region in the world to be granted a Controlled Denomination Origin label (D.O.C.). With so much to offer, it is only natural that Douro attracts is the number one wine tour destination in Portugal. The Douro is known for its superb wines (not only Port, but also the table wines that have been produced for centuries in the region) but also for the beauty of a truly privileged landscape, the backdrop for incredible stories around wine, taste and tradition. Often in the same family for several generations, old manor houses that belonged to the wine producers of Douro are now being refurbished and transformed into trendy hotels and enotourism venues, where guests can dwell in the true spirit of Douro’s wine culture, while enjoying personalized wine tours that include visits to the vineyards and wineries, wine making, wine tasting, and candle-lit dinners.
Wine Tours in Alentejo: The true Terroir of the South of Portugal
Wine tours in Portugal continue in the serene plains of Alentejo, to the South, where wine lovers will find a brand new world to discover, as they get a true taste of terroir, meet the people behind the region’s wine wonders and listen to their wonderful stories. Alentejo, another highpoint of wine tours in Portugal, is also the home to some of the countries’ most beautiful wineries, from historical wine venues to those designed by renowned contemporary architects, as thrilling and surprising as the reds and whites that mature within their walls.
Wine Culture: A Tour of Starchitects’ Wineries in Portugal
Designed by some of Portugal’s leading architects, modern day wineries, one of the highlights of wine tours in Portugal, are both an example of the excellence of the Portuguese architectural scene and a place where tradition and innovation cohabit. Adega Mayor, a project by Pritzker Prize winner Álvaro Siza Vieira in Alentejo, is but an example of this. A subtle volume cut against the vineyards, it has become a landmark of the region and a symbol of the vitality of the renewed wine culture in Portugal. There are many more, waiting to be discovered in the varied programs of wine tours in Portugal, such as the Quinta do Portal (also by Siza) and the elegant Quinta do Vallado (by Francisco Vieira de Campos) in the heart of the Douro Valley, or, going south, the Adega Mãe, a project by Pedro Mateus in Torres Vedras.
