Drink it in
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.
It’s not just the intensely steep slopes. It’s the stepladdered 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
