“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 175 6. It’s famous for
port, the sweet, fortified wine most often paired with our
festive cheeseboards. But farming grapes here is no party.
It’s not just the intensely steep slopes. It’s the step-
laddered stone terraces on them. Blasted into submission
with dynamite centuries ago, they are now protected by
UNESCO and must be painstakingly maintained just as
they are. Then there’s the unique local blend of grape
varieties. Even a single plot might contain dozens of
different types — some so rare they’re unidentifiable
— so replacing ailing vines is a challenge. And then, there’s
the increasingly extreme climate. In scorching summer,
temperatures can reach 45 C. In winter, it might rain so
heavily that delicate old terraces can threaten to buckle.
Or, like this year, it might not rain at all.
Jorge is concerned by the dryness, but not yet worried.
He knows the roots of his old vines run deep and they’ll
survive. As we climb along the rows — each one so cramped
it can only be harvested by hand — he bends the stalks,
examining his pruner’s recent work. He checks a newly
repaired roof on an outbuilding. In his little stone winery,
which smells of wood and baked plums, he stops to chat
with his assistant about repairing one of his grandfather’s
huge wooden wine vats.
Jorge’s story is, in some ways, a common one: his family
have grown grapes in the Douro Valley for generations.
Whereas most people produce for the big port houses
— internationally known brands whose names are splayed
across terracotta rooftops in Porto’s Vila Nova de Gaia
— Jorge bottles it all under his own label, Wine & Soul.
He and his wife, Sandra, also a winemaker, don’t only
produce port, which has been the lifeblood of the Douro
Valley these past few hundred years; Wine & Soul is also
part of a new vinous movement, putting regular dry table
wines from Douro on the map. It’s a brand that respects
the region’s traditions, handpicking grapes and crushing
many by foot in vast, open, lagares tanks made of granite.
It’s late winter,
and the ground
in the Douro
Valley is thirsty.
Clockwise from top: Jorge Serôdio
Borges, co-owner of Wine & Soul,
surveys Quinta da Manoella, one of his
vineyards in the Douro region; Maria
Azevedo, tourism co-ordinator at
Symington Family Estates, at Quinta do
Vesuvio, one of many vineyards owned
by the company; straight from the
barrel at Wine & Soul
Previous pages: Jorge samples a glass
of port at Wine & Soul
98 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/TRAVEL
PORTUGAL
