PORTO

With an extravagant new wine-themed attraction and a galaxy of top-quality restaurants, Portugal’s second city is sending out a siren call to food enthusiasts far and wide

- Audrey Gillan

When you have wine in your mouth, evaluate the flavours — bitter, sweet, acidic — and once you swallow, evaluate the burn and aftertaste. How long is the aroma present in your throat? That bitterness is the tannins, they give a tingling in the gums and tongue. The sweetness is the residual sugar. And the higher the acidity of the wine, the more saliva secreted.”

I’m being taught how to taste wine. It’s not a wine-tasting per se but one small part of the journey through Porto’s new World of Wine (WoW) a ‘cultural centre in the historic heart of the port wine industry’ that aims to demystify wine. Adrian Bridge, the man whose vision to create a whole ‘world’ of tourism attractions for Porto came to fruition last July after seven years of work, is sitting on a terrace outside this series of six museums, with accompanying restaurants, bars, shops and wine school. “We wanted to preserve this historic area, it’s very beautiful. We didn’t want to change the way the city looks, we just wanted to repurpose it,” he tells me.

Opposite Porto, on the Douro River’s southern bank, the city of Vila Nova de Gaia is home to the historic lodges that received and aged barrels of port transported by barge downstream from the vineyards in the Douro Valley. It’s here that WoW shines a light on wine — not just the region’s headline-grabbing fine port wine, but all kinds of wine, here in Portugal and across the globe. “People think wine is a complex subject but hopefully we make it fun and easy to digest,” Adrian explains.

The quality of the content at WoW is extraordinary, as is its diversity: apart from wine, visitors can learn about the making of chocolate from bean to bar, the uses of cork, as well as the history of Porto and the country’s north, and its culture and people.