Granted, this was our first true wine tasting excursion in Gaia. We chose to visit the family-owned boutique winemaker, Augusto’s. The Augusto family has two small vineyards in the Douro Valley and is not a part of any multi-vineyard corporation. They produce only a maximum of 35,000 bottles a year. That’s about the number of bottles corporate wineries produce in a day. Their wine will rarely be found in restaurants and never in stores. It is exclusive and exclusively sold online or right here at the wine cellar in Gaia.
Before we could enjoy learning about Port and tasting some, we had chores to do. Running low on essentials we found a supermercado a bit closer to our apartment than that on our first shopping trip and accessible by much better roads and sidewalks. It was only 7/10 of a mile away, but half of the trek was up a long, steep hill. No two ways about it, our legs are getting a daily workout in Portugal!
Stuff all purchased and loaded in two backpacks and a shopping bag, we headed back home. Walking along and chit-chatting, we looked to our right and saw ripe blackberries in a vacant lot. Just past the estuary on our walk to the beach last week, we found blackberries there as well. We have always loved blackberries and have managed to find a nice patch each year for a while now. Well, we could not pick a pail full there because people or birds got to them first, but the few we found were out of this world! We could not believe the taste! Those berries were much sweeter than blackberries we know; they were mild, sweet, and had a faint taste of vanilla.
We ventured on to the vacant lot we saw today and voila, these too were taste-tingling blackberries. Fully ripe ones were sweet, super sweet. We were able to find and pick only a handful each. The best ones, naturally, dangled enticingly in the middle of the patch and required someone like Brer Rabbit to enter the briars to get them. We picked the ones we could and ate them on the spot.
After changing clothes we arrived for our appointment for the 4:30 pm wine tour and tasting at Augusto’s. Gosh, we learned so much about Port. Yes, Port is a fortified wine, meaning additional high-test alcohol is added to assist in the aging process, giving Port a greater kick than most ordinary wines. There are White Ports–very light colored and fairly expensive, Ruby Ports–very dark colored and least expensive and Tawny Ports—thicker, very sweet, rust-colored, and more expensive wines. Ports are classified by years aged in the barrel, for example, Fines 4 to 6 years, Reserves 7 to 10 years, and some special wines spend only 2 years in a barrel but are aged in the bottle, sediment and all. Other wines that spend more time in barrels do not continue to age once bottled. Then some vintages remain in the original casks for many years. Augusto’s has some casked in French Oak barrels since just after the end of WW II. These are very special wines.
I learned that some of my earlier discoveries about Port wine were not completely accurate. 1. Port wine is named not for the city of Porto but after the District of Porto which includes Porto and Gaia. Bummer! Still, Gaia has the wine caves. Then 2, now that winegrowers have access to artificial climate controls, AKA air conditioning, most Port wine is aged in the Douro Valley today at the farms and shipped to Porto and Gaia for further distribution. Bummer! It seems most of the wine caves here in Gaia are merely for demonstration and wine sampling. I cannot wait to see what else we learn. . .
We are taking a train ride tomorrow, a boat trip on Wednesday, and dining with Fado singers and folk dancing on Thursday evening. This should be fun!
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Salud!