Drink it in

Centuries after it first started producing port wines, the Douro Valley has a new focus: a growing tourism scene. But even as visitors pour into this rolling landscape of dramatic hills and deep river valleys, the region's agrarian heart stays true

- ALICIA MILLER

It's late winter, and the ground in the Douro Valley is thirsty.

“We haven’t had rain since November,” Jorge Serôdio Borges tells me as we scramble up the steep and dusty slope of his prized vineyard, Pintas. Grey clouds blanket the sky above us, but despite the winemaker’s hopes, today there will be no rain. His rows of gnarled old vines — bowed and arthritic, witness to a century on this earth — will have to wait to drink.

Breathless, we soon reach the pinnacle of the plot. Jorge sweeps his arm across the hills, showing me his land. It’s a dramatic scene: abrupt and narrow schist terraces, lined with vines, while parcels of dense cork and olive trees interrupt an endless horizon of green hills, dotted with ruined stone structures. Jorge doesn’t have to explain the challenges he faces in making wine here; it’s written in the landscape. His challenge is the landscape.

Winemaking is a labour of love anywhere, but perhaps nowhere more so than in the Douro Valley. This vast, hilly area, sliced by the snaking Douro River, is the world’s oldest demarcated wine region, declared in 1756. It’s famous for port, the sweet, fortified wine most often paired with our festive cheeseboards. But farming grapes here is no party.