Page 145 - Cork & Tee Sample Program Flipbook, 2018

We’ll provide dining suggestions throughout your program and secure bookings on your behalf.

Proposed Accommodations for 3 nights: The Yeatman, quite simply the finest property in
Porto. This boutique property offers wonderful views of the old city and the Douro.

Day 2 – Friday, October 13: The Douro River Valley. This leisurely, full-day, private guided
tour will showcase one of the world’s oldest and most beautiful wine growing regions. The
Douro region starts approximately 65 miles
east of Porto (90 min by car) and extends to
the border with Spain. It includes nearly
100,000 acres of wine grapes under
cultivation. Port vineyards are planted along
the steep, spectacular hills overlooking the
Douro and its tributaries. Generations of men
and women toiled tirelessly to build terraces
into the rock face to create an impressive
landscape where stifling hot, dry summers are
followed by harsh, wet winters. It is the region’s characteristic poor soil and uncompromising
Mediterranean-like climate which produce this
most sought-after wine. Until the end of the
nineteenth century, the river was the main access
route to the inland regions and the only means of
importing foreign products. A difficult and risky
river to navigate, there was only one type of boat
that could overcome its natural obstacles -- the
Barco Rabelo. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the boat’s robustness and the skill of the
crews made it possible to transport great barrels of
wine up river. Today, the region is booming
thanks to the continued popularity of Port and
growth in the vinification of both red and white
still wines in this region.

You will meet Ana, Marco, or another of our expert guides at hotel reception this morning.
While it is too early to confirm specific Port houses given the nature of the wine business, your
visit may be to Fonseca, considered by top wine experts to be the "Petrus of Port,” one of the
best Ports in the world. The company of Fonseca Guimaraens was established in 1822 by the
Guimaraens family, which has Brazilian origins. By 1840, Fonseca was the second largest
exporter of port wines and near the end of that decade, the firm shipped its first vintage port, the
1847 vintage, to England. The family-run company, still in the hands of the founding family,
harvests by hand and still crushes grapes by stomping (as in foot stomping!).

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