A trip to Portugal during Eid holiday

[RonnieRoots]

One of the consequences of living in an Islamic country, is that we're bound to Islamic holidays. This is not so bad, because there are many of them, and they tend to be longer than our Christian counterparts. A downside is that they're dependent on the moon, and always called at last notice. For that reason most people here spend those holidays camping somewhere in Oman. But we felt like going to Portugal and visiting our friends Ronald and Jet in the Douro. So we booked a ticket as soon as it was more or less certain when Eid-al-Adha (the feast of sacrifice) would be held.

Normally, we wouldn't choose to go to the Douro at the end of November, we had some pretty bad weather and the beautiful autumn colours were rapidly disappearing as many vines had already lost there leaf and others were in the process of being pruned. But it was great as well. Olive harvest was underway, which was a fun sight, and it was great to see the clouds come up out of the valley at times. A surreal and beautiful picture.

We planned only two tastings beforehand, but of course, more was added when we were there. We spent a wonderful afternoon with Gustavo in the Graham's lodge, tasting ports from 1980 to 2007. Also in Porto, we paid a short visit to the new Niepoort lodge, to which much of the current stock has been transferred. Barrel tastes of the Niepoort Pisca 2007 and a 2008 port from around Vale de Mendiz (as yet undecided what to do with it) were much appreciated. And of course, an evening at Vinologia, where we tasted some great older tawnies and aged white ports together with Gonçalo and Jean-Philipe.

In the Douro, we filled our time with good food, good wine and port, a beautiful and long walk through the vineyards (from Provesende to Passadouro via Quinta de Terra Feita) and two winery visits. Oscar took great care of us at Quevedo. We had great fun with the blind colheita tasting, with a very surprising outcome! And of course the 2007 vintage port was tasted: what a beauty. Another morning was spent in the company of Paulo Coutinho, the winemaker of Quinta do Portal, tasting through their range of Douro wines, Moscatels and Ports. It has been a couple of years since I last did such an extensive tasting of the Portals, so this was very good to see the progress they've made since. The rest of the time was spent in restaurants and at Ronald and Jet's house, and lots of Douro wine and Port was consumed.

I've already posted part of the tasting notes, and the rest will follow soon.

[Axel P]

Very interesting. I love the Pisca 08 from the barrel.

Axel

[oscar quevedo]

Ronald,

Thank you for coming, I had a great and I hope you can come over again soon!

Oscar

[RonnieRoots]

Very interesting. I love the Pisca 08 from the barrel.

Axel

I did see that barrel! But didn't have a taste...