Food Tours · Tour

The Key to the Vintage Room at Real Companhia Velha

The claim this tour rests on is literal: the guide carries a key to the vintage room at Real Companhia Velha, and you unlock it together. Real Companhia Velha was chartered in 1756 to regulate the Douro, the same act that made it the first demarcated wine region in the world, and it is the oldest Portuguese-owned port house still operating. The tasting inside is four wines: white, rosé, ruby and tawny. Three and a half hours, ten people at most, starting at Jardim do Morro, the hilltop park in Gaia where the upper deck of the Dom Luís I bridge lands and the whole of Porto is laid out in front of you. The first thing you eat is a bispo, a puff pastry base under sweet egg cream and shredded coconut, with an espresso, which is a Porto breakfast rather than a tourist one. At a grocery-turned-tavern on Rua Cândido dos Reis there are codfish fritters and tomato rice, the wet kind that arrives loose in the bowl, with a glass of white. The francesinha comes later, on Avenida da República, with a Super Bock, which is the pairing the city insists on. Seven drinks in total across the stops, port and beer and wine. On the way through Gaia you pass the Bordalo II animals, sculptures built from scrap plastic, tyres and discarded metal and mounted on walls at a size you cannot miss. English-speaking guide. Minimum two guests. Children under four join free without food. Stops and dishes vary by day and season. Vegetarian and gluten-free can usually be arranged by email or a note at booking; severe allergies cannot be accommodated. The endpoint on the Gaia waterfront varies.