By Olga Antoniadou
This will be my first reference to my visit to the Douro Valley, with a second to follow on Quinta do Crasto and Quinta do Vale Meao. My aspiration was to manage to visit the Douro Boys (Quinta do Vallado, Quinta do Crasto, Niepoort, Quinta do Vale Dona Maria, Quinta do Vale Meao) during my three-and-a-half day trip to Porto, but it proved impossible to do so as my dates were fixed and, obviously, they had other commitments. I did manage to visit 3 out of 5. Not bad at all! The idea was sparked by Terry Kandylis, but Andrea Schultes and Isabella Kitzwoegerer of Wine Partners helped me with the final planning.
I stayed at Quinta do Vallado, which is situated on the banks of the Corgo river near Peso de Regua, and a meeting with Francisco Ferreira (pictured below) was organised. It happened that on the particular day it was suddenly very hot, “Not so usual at this time of the year,” as he later told us. Instead of worrying about what we would be talking about, I ended up fretting about whether I would manage to not look completely dishevelled, with my make-up all smudged! A polite, good-looking man of about 50 makes his way towards me and Nikos. Dressed simply, in a white linen shirt, friendly, polite. He introduces himself and he is our man. He puts us in his car and drives a minute uphill to the area of the winery and tasting room. He proved to be an excellent host, informative, sensitive and with a good sense of humour.
Before we start talking about the property he explains that, “the Douro was the first wine delimited region in the world. It is divided into three regions Baixo Corgo, Cima Corgo and Douro Superior near the borders with Spain. The climate and soils in these regions are very different. Just to give you an idea in Porto the rain is 1300-1400mm a year, in Baixo 800mm and in Douro Superior less than 400mm. The soil is mainly schist and it becomes poorer and poorer towards Douro Superior.” We have stopped in front of a vertical cut of the ground above us (as the winery is in levels due to the inclination) and he shows us how there is about a metre of soil on the top, with the layers of brown schist underneath. “There are two types of schist here, the blue and the brown. Here we have the brown. It breaks easily and it allows the roots to go very deep in their search for water, thus getting all the terroir. It preserves humidity and sometimes it will have small crevices that store water. That is how the vine manages to survive this very difficult climate.” The climate is continental, meaning that you have very hot summers and very cold winters.