Tuesday was a long and occasionally scary day of port and wine tasting around the Douro. For the fourth and final time, Liza's alarm went off at 4 am and come morning I stood over her with a wine opening knife until she turned it off. Our hotel (Quinta do Vallado in case I haven't named it) offers free breakfast and it honestly rivals that which we had overlooking the Mediterranean in Costa Brava last year. Hams and cheeses and fruits and honeys and yogurts and veggies and breads and croissants -- all while seated outside overlooking the valley. Not too shabs at all. The only thing - the coffee really sucks.
Our outfit gimmick for the day (first of this trip, unless you count wetsuits filled with urine) was dressing in red whit and blue. We loaded into the car and drove over to Pinhao, about 20K east to start wine tasting and work our way back. First stop was Quinta da Foz where we tasted two reds (among others), one made mechanically and one made by human stomping. It was crazy how much better the stomped wine tasted. It was also interesting because she told us only men did the stomping - not because of tradition but because on the first day you have to stomp for 3 hours and in the same place, which apparently you can't do when you have breasts and birthing hips. RUDE.
From there we made a long twisty drive up to Quinta do Nova, an enormous vineyard, hotel and restaurant that seemed almost deserted. This afforded us the opportunity for some inividual and group frolic photos. We finally did get some wine, and while good, nothing super remarkable. We then winded our way back to Quinta Visto do Allegre, which according to Beall means "the happy view". We made a wrong turn somehow and wound up twisting our way through the vines themselves. Our little Citroen held out for us, as did our hearts as we looked out the window to a steep ass drop. Liza doesn't like edges and Girl doesn't like ends, so clearly not a "happy view" for us.
The rest of the afternoon we hopped to three or four other places, picking between ports and table wines. At 4 pm, our random but usual lunch time, we found a quaint snack bar on the Douro with a very confuse-ed menu, so we played some Russian Roulette and ended up with a huge shrimp platter, some weird sausage, and our first taste of bacalao. Look it up for a description, but it's a Portuguese specialty, and one we hadn't yet tried. Overall, a outing, though we have a list of things for Rick and Lonely Planet to correct.
We returned to our quinta exhausted and ready for a dip in the pool. Me and Girl had some interesting discussions about who first discovered how to make wine, who decided there were 360 degrees in a circle, why people bring kids on vakay, and more. All around the pool are fruit trees, so we picked ourselves a few snacks (shhh) and shared a bottle of Rose Spumante.
For dinner we checked out one of Peso do Regua's newest dining rooms. We did not have a reservation, which proved to make things a tad trickier. We learned that apparently in Rome you never have to wait for a table or wine or water or a boyfriend, so got a whole lesson on Liza's new found impatience. Once seated we had an amazing meal that included: mackerel on toast with fig and roasted peppers; foie gras with grapes and a warm rum sauce; veal cutlets in a roquefort sauce on a mushroom risotto; and asparagus wrapped in ham, drizzled in rosemary honey. (Ed note: I'm writing this post 24 hours after that meal, and re-living it is kind of amazing).
Back at the farm, we decided to have robe time (When in Robe!) sit on the patio outside our room (in some of the most comfy lounge chairs you will ever find) and talk about life and work and next vacations and Saved By The Bell. A really great day - made even better by the fact that there was no 4 am alarm this morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment