4/4 – Pinhão explorations and Casa de Mateus

This morning, we take our morning walk through the Bomfim vineyards. There are hikes you can schedule here – as well as across the river at Carvalhas – but we don’t have enough time to do that, so we are just sort of doing it on our own. It is a stunningly beautiful morning, nice and cool but with perfect sunshine as we make our way down the deserted main street and enter into the vineyards past the main entrance to Quinta do Bomfim.

Following AllTrails, we walk up a long, narrow cobblestone lane flanked with big stone walls on either side (no way we’d want to drive up here), before turning off into the vineyards, walking farm trails among and between the rows of vines.

The higher we climb, the prettier the views get. We head toward a restaurant called Casa dos Ecos. Can’t decide if it opens on a regular basis or just for special occasions, but regardless, their patio (which we walk right though) has spectacular views across the vineyards. Just gorgeous with the fog down on the lower slopes by the river.

Continuing on through the vineyards, we walk higher and higher. It is a great circle route up here. Until we reach a point where AllTrails says to go straight, and we say oh no. The trail GPS takes us right through vineyard worker housing. And we mean like little puppy dogs and clothes hanging out on the line. Um no – we’re not traipsing through their yards to get to the other side for some trail. That’s no better than the darn Google GPS!

So, of course, we don’t follow the trail, but make our own and head back downhill – but now we’re into the working area with trucks and farm vehicles coming by – at least we know we are going in the right direction. And the views are still stunning.

We hit a little bit of a snag when we end up in the actual Quinta where the road ends at what looks like a locked gate. Hmmm…are we going to have to climb over the stone wall to get out? But no, the gate has some sort of sensor because it opens automatically as we approach. Phew. Didn’t want to have to figure out how to retrace our steps through the vineyard!

Now it is time to shower and hit the road on our way to Mateus for our Wine and Vine tour. On the way, we drive through spectacular scenery, the hills filled with trees and lined with terraced vineyards as we driver higher and higher into the mountains. Stopping at the Miguel Torga viewpoint, a Nobel Prize winning poet who was born in the village of Sao Martinho, which is close to here. Then more beautiful scenery and more lookouts, including the Sao Christovão do Douro Miradouro with even more amazing views to the river and across the vineyard covered hills. Just too many places to stop and too many gorgeous views! You just can’t ever get enough!

Finally arriving at Mateus, we find parking a block or so away and head through the arched stone entrance to check in for our tour. We are extremely early (as in 1 ½ hours early) but we wanted to walk through the gardens before our 11:30 house tour and figured this would give us time. The gatehouse guy though says he’ll call to see if we can start the tour early. Well, ok, but we’re good either way. Turns out we can start early – so off we go for our guided tour of Casa Mateus. We end up with a new guide (who is fabulous) and 2 other couples as we walk through Great Hall of the house, with the beautiful chestnut wood ceilings and original preserved antique furniture. Then it is upstairs to the library with the hundreds of old and original books, including The Monumental Edition of The Lusiads, Portugal’s most important epic poem – an 1817 edition put together by D. Joes Maria, the 5th Morgado de Mateus.

Continuing through the upper level, we arrive at the chapel with relics brought from the Vatican in the 18^th C. All with proof of authenticity. Eek. Pieces of holy fingernail, eyeballs, eek. Just eek.

This finishes our tour – thankfully – and we head back out to the courtyard to begin our winery tour. Handed over to another guide, Lissa, we begin our exploration in the vineyard “museum,” which is a big living display of all the different vines and grapes grown through the Mateus cooperative. Lissa is great, totally personable and so smart! And she’s from Cabo Verde and just about keels over when she finds out we were just there last week! Makes us bond as friends for life! As we wander through the vines, she gives us a history of the region, the vines, the way the grapes are planted (we already knew about the fungus that killed so many plants). As we go she also points out all the bugs and insects she finds – because she is an entomologist who needs a few credits more to get her degree and eventually wants to work in the field of animals and bugs and research. She is adorable!

Lissa takes us around through some more of the outdoor museum, then leads us around the property to the wine cellar where we have our own private tour inside the working winery. No photos are allowed, but it is a typical wine cellar with bottling machines and barrels and everything a working winery needs to operate. There are actually a couple of guys bottling as we enter.

Then it is on to the wine tasting. We Americans all know Mateus from the 1970s when it was uber-popular, and they produced that earworm jingle. It was not the best wine at the time, but everyone had it on their table in that interesting and different bottle. But in Europe, Mateus was always about more than just that sweet Rose. They were producing tons of different wine and belong to a cooperative of vineyards that pool together to make their own wine in their own cellar (here and at another location). All that to say, this isn’t your father’s Mateus! Lisa takes us through 3 different wines: Club Nosso, which is the newest vintage, a really good white; Lavadores de Feitoria (actually the name of the cooperative), developed in 2000 from 15 farmers and 18 farms; then finally Quinta da Costa, one of the oldest methodologies of making wines, in the Mateus family since 1659. All the while we are chatting and snacking and having a wonderful time.

So much so, that by the time we are done it is well after 1pm! And we still haven’t had lunch! Thank heavens we did get in for an early tour. That was the best 60 Euros we’ve ever spent! After exchanging contact info, we say goodbye to Lissa and make our way out to the courtyard and past the beautiful manmade lake, designed to reflect the palace, along with the sleeping lady statue created by a Portuguese sculpture in 1981. Beautiful.

We never did get to wander through the gardens as planned, because we’re hungry, and Lissa suggested we go across the street to the little restaurant Vinho e Tretas (wine and things). She used to work there and says they have very good food and snacks. Sounds perfect to us, so off we go, to the upstairs dining area where we basically order snacks: Tabua Queijo e Enchido (cheese and meat platter) with Pao and Azeitonas (bread and olives). Perfect meal after all that wine and snacks at Mateus.

We spend a little time downstairs in the giftshop, picking up some little cork bracelets and a nice bottle of wine – then it is off into the mountains again, on our return trip to Pinhão. The scenery is just as stunning on the drive back – of course, same route, same hills and vineyards!

We take a diversion before returning to go to the Miadouro de Casal de Loivos, directly above Pinhão. We had thought about walking up here, but boy are we glad we didn’t try that! We are way, way up the mountain, driving through a little teeny village (ack!) – with little teeny narrow streets! But the reward is well worth the teeny streets – the views from up here are fabulous. We are looking down on Pinhão and the Douro, and the gorgeous rolling vineyards. Spectacular. You can see the Metal Bridge that spans the Douro (designed by the Eiffel office – the same designers as in Paris and the Eiffel tower – and that is super narrow, virtually one-way, that we drove across yesterday when we arrived in Pinhão), Quinta de Carvalhas on the opposite side of the river, Quinta de Bomfim where we walk in the morning, and all the way down the river. Awesome.

Reversing course – GPS is trying to send us another way down directly into town, but we can see the way that road looks and the hairpin corner we have to take through buildings, and well, nope. We’re going back the way we came. And taking more pictures of the gorgeous terrain!

Back in town, we take our afternoon walk, this time crossing over the Roman bridge and walking down the opposite side of the Douro where the riverboats dock. Gives a different perspective on Pinhão – from here you can see just how small a town it really is – one main road, really, with a whole bunch of vineyards surrounding it.

After our evening beverage on the rooftop, we head down to the water to LBV79, a restaurant we had spied on our evening walk. We had worried it would be crowded with River boat people – but no worries there. There is only one other table occupied in the upstairs dining area. We had wanted to sit outside on the deck, but unfortunately it is sort of sprinkling, so we remain inside – but with a window overlooking the Douro. Seafood is the dish to order (duh – look where we are), so Ed starts with Crème de Marisco (creamy fish soup) that is packed with seafood, then he orders the Bacalhau a LBV79 which is described as codfish ala LBV79 and I choose the Dourada Grelhada, grilled Dorade or sea bream. Ok – my fish was fantastic, some of the best we’ve ever had, but Ed’s? Of dear me, his plate contains the biggest chunk of cod you have ever seen topped with two equally gigantic prawns in an excellent lemony sauce. Plus, those little round balls on his plate? Cheese covered baked mashed potatoes. Totally yummy, but totally massive! Thank god it is just fish and the side veggie is cabbage.