Those who love to travel and taste good wine will certainly fall in love with the opening of the 2022 season of the CNN Original Series. There will be four episodes in which I, Elisa Veeck, anchor of CNN Brasil, I traveled more than 1,500 km behind cellars and cellars (yes, they call the place where the wines are stored as a cellar; a cellar is where it is produced).
The Portuguese drink, on average, 53 liters of wine per year. They are ahead of the Italians and French in this ranking, and this justifies a culture that is part of the country’s routine: wine is in everything! Any meeting between friends or family meals has a glass of wine.
A good Portuguese table is mandatory bread, olive oil and wine. It’s okay that they never stop there, because there’s always cheese, olives, heavy meats and hours and hours of conversation. Drinking wine is enjoying quality time.
The new CNN series, which premieres this Saturday (15), begins in the northern region of the country: the city of Porto. And as the famous Port wine is not produced in the city of Porto itself, Séries Originalis traveled another hour’s journey to the (dazzling) Douro region, where the grapes that produce one of the most important wines on the planet are grown. By the way, grapes grown outside the Douro cannot receive the title of Port wine, and this concerns what winemakers call terroir: a series of characteristics that form a kind of grape RG.
Port wine belongs to a category called “liqueurs”. Its fermentation process is different from traditional wines, so the taste is very sweet. To compensate for the sweetness, brandy is added – made from the grape skin itself. The combination is so tasty that even Queen Elisabeth determined that toasts at Windsor Castle can only be with a port wine. And the first episode was to know where this label is produced.
Check out the places visited in “Wines of Portugal” below, and learn a little more about them:
Graham’s Port Lodge
Here are the producers of the Queen’s port: Graham’s. Back in 1820, a Scotsman arrived in the Douro region to work in Portuguese lands as an employee of a family producing the drink. Today, five generations later, the Simington family has become one of the most powerful in winemaking. Grahm’s is just one of their brands.
The grape plantations and the cellar where the wine is produced are located in the Douro, but the barrels where the wine rests and the commercialization of all products is in the city of Porto. In the cellar (the underground store where barrels and bottles are stored for preserving wines), which dates back to 1890, the wines rest waiting for the time when the owners decide to sell them.
The space welcomes visitors and offers, in addition to the tour, different tasting menus, which present different decades of production: there are wines up to 40 years old being offered.
Address: Rua do Agro 141, 4400-281, Vila Nova de Gaia (Porto city district)
Site: https://www.grahams-port.com/
Contact: +351 223 776 490 / [email protected]
@grahams_port/
WOW Porto – The World of Wine
It’s worth setting aside a full day to walk around WOW. It’s a kind of wine experience mixed with museum. It is located in Vila Nova de Gaia, district of the city of Porto. It is a huge “cultural quarter”, with seven different museums (there even has a chocolate museum), dedicated to explaining everything about wine: producing regions, types of land for each type of grape, construction of barrels, where the cork comes from. bottles, scent riddles.
The installations and experiences are interactive, and the idea is to simplify the wine universe and show that everyone can understand the subject. In addition to the museums, WOW has a Wine School, which organizes workshops and guided tastings. There are also 12 bars and restaurants in the complex, where visitors can experience in practice what they learned between the museums and the School.
Address: Rua do Choupelo, 39, 4400-088, Vila Nova de Gaia
Site: https://wow.pt/
Contact: +351 220 121 200 / [email protected]
@wow.porto/
The Yeatman
It feels like sleeping inside a wine-producing farm. The corridors are scented with the smell of fruit and the products of the bathroom (called a bathroom by the Portuguese) as well. You can easily find a shampoo made from the leaf or a soap with a seed exfoliator. Each room is named after a farm (including decoration with local characteristics), in addition to all the windows facing the Douro River and the Luis I Bridge – designed by Eiffel.
The winery hotel has the world’s largest stock of Portuguese wines in its cellar (a wine cellar for the Portuguese). There are more than a thousand labels! And there’s more: chef with two Michelin stars, themed dinners, masterclasses, meetings with winemakers, spa with wine immersion, among other experiences.
Address: Rua do Choupelo, 4400-088, Vila Nova de Gaia
Site: https://www.the-yeatman-hotel.com/
Contact: +351 220 133 100 / [email protected]
@theyeatman
I went to the Douro Estates
Inaugurated in 2018, the winery in the Douro is an initiative of Brazilian entrepreneurs Rubens Menin and Cristiano Gomes, who entered the market to enhance the region’s table wines. The farm, as the grape growing lands are called, covers 140 hectares (equivalent to 140 football fields) and has particularities that are a treasure for the production of the drink: vineyards that are over a hundred years old.
You can take a tour on guided tours and see up close the immense mountains full of steps – which were implemented from the 1970s onwards to facilitate the automation of harvesting. There is also a tasting for you to discover the flavors of the creations of winemakers who were born and grew up in the region.
Address: N 322-2, Km 20, 5060-056, Gouvinhas Sabrosa
Site: https://menindouroestates.wine/
Contact: +351 259 931 054 / [email protected]
@menindouroestates
Bad habits
It is a funky and bohemian cultural house located in the city of Porto. It has become an emblematic space in the city because it is located in an old building that has a parking lot (also old) on the ground floor. When you arrive, it doesn’t even look like there’s a restaurant/bar there, but when you enter the elevator, you’re already immersed in the city’s arts. It has shows, exhibitions, releases, theater shows. The restaurant has a typical and, at the same time, modern menu. Don’t be surprised if, out of nowhere, everything turns into one big nightclub. And, of course, check out the wine list.
Address: Rua de Passos Manuel, 178, 4th Floor, 4000-382, Porto
Site: https://www.maushabitos.com/
Contact: +351 937 202 918 / [email protected]
@maushabitos
Reference: CNN Brasil
