Food Tours · Tour

Moscatel at Favaios, Then Two More Family Quintas

Ten hours, collected from your hotel in Porto, with a guide and vehicle booked for your group alone. The winery visits themselves are shared with whoever else is there, which the operator states plainly rather than leaving you to discover. The first stop is what makes the day. Favaios sits on a plateau above the Douro, surrounded by around a thousand hectares of vines, and it is one of only two places in Portugal allowed to make Moscatel. The estate eases you in with a white blend and then pours the Moscatel, which is golden, sweet and nothing like port despite both being fortified. Lunch is three courses at a winery near Pinhão, matched to that estate's premium DOC Douro whites and reds, with a viewpoint stop on the way. You pass the railway station at Pinhão and its tiled panels. The second estate, family-run, is where the two styles are set against each other: how DOC Douro and port are made from the same fruit, what the climate and the schist do to the grapes, and what the storage decisions produce. You taste both. The third, above Peso da Régua and also family-run, is there to show how much else the valley makes: alongside the DOC and the port, it produces olive oil and nuts, and you taste the oil too. Which estates you visit can change with availability. Bottled water, air-conditioned transport, entry and guided visits at all three, and the meal are included. Pick-up outside Porto costs extra. Up to fifteen travellers, guided in Portuguese, English, French or Spanish. Vegetarian meals with notice at booking. Minimum drinking age eighteen. It runs in any weather.