Pinhão and Port Wine Country

[Sun 5/14 - Mon 5/15]

We hit the road from Porto around noon for the ~2hr drive to Pinhão, further up the Douro River. The first hour or so was on highways before transitioning to narrow, 2-lane roads that dropped down to the river. We stopped for a great lunch in the tiny riverfront town of Peso da Régua, then continued ~30min along the river to Pinhão and Quinta de La Rosa, a small, family-owned winery that doubles as a hotel, our home for the night.

Salmon pastry for lunch

Peso da Régua; hillsides along the river are filled with wineries and terraced vineyards

The Quinta de La Rosa is perched on a slope on the north side of the river, just outside of Pinhão. We checked in, settled in to our rooms, made a couple Mother's Day calls, then headed back to the lobby for a tour of the wine-making facilities - and a tasting.

Terraced vineyards of Quinta de La Rosa

View from just outside our room

Wine production facility and storage

Red wine storage

Port wine storage - massive barrels

Beautiful tasting room above the port storage...

... with a retractable window covering to limit light exposure to the barrels

After the tour, we stopped at the room to clean up, then walked to dinner at Claire's, named after the woman who started the winery (now owned by her granddaughter) in the early 1900's. We had a delicious meal on their patio looking over the river at sunset, then headed to bed.

We slept in a bit Monday, grabbed breakfast at the hotel, then hit the road again to drive south and west toward the town of Tomar.