How can you trample grapes in the Douuro Valley in Portugal

Do you remember that episode of “I Love Lucy” where Lucy is treading grapes In a huge wooden tank (and then does it fight with an Italian lady)? I still remember the first time I saw that episode when I was a child (thanks, Nick and Nite and my grandmother who let us watch cable television at home!). Something about it made a sufficient impression for me to put “trampling grapes to make wine” on my travel list, without knowing that it was an activity that the average person could really do.

But guess what? There are still places absolutely in the world where the grapes stand with their bare feet, and yes, even places where tourists can participate to help!

One of these places is the Duero ValleyA famous wine producing region in northern Portugal, where many winemakers still do things in the manual way, even how they press their grapes.

I reserved a tour to help with the wine harvest process in a Douuro Valley winery last fall, and I want to tell you everything about it!

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What is the Duero Valley?

The first thing is the first: what and where is the Douuro Valley? He Duero Valley It is located in northern Portugal, where the Duero River has scaled a deep valley with steep rolling hills. In these steep hills, the vineyards in terraces constitute one of the oldest demarcated wine regions in the entire world.

The Douuro Valley is where the wine from the port of the world comes from. It is like the Champagne region in France; Under the protected designation of the laws of origin in the European Union, only the fortified wine made with grapes from the Douuro wine region can be officially called Port or Porto.

They have been making wine here for a long time, approximately 2,000 years, to be exact. And many winemakers still do things in the traditional way, from selecting all grapes to stop by hand (er … flats?) They. Some of this is by necessity (for example, the steep vineyard terraces make it difficult to use machinery to choose small grapes), while some of them are considered to be considered the best way to do things.

Stomulating grapes in the Valle de Duero

Many winemakers in the Valle de Duero still press grapes for red wine in the manner of “Old World”: with its bare feet!

This happens during the harvest season (usually in mid -September until mid -October, although the exact dates change from year to year). The freshly planned grape clusters are placed in a large cement/stone channel (known as a winery), and then the stommers/tapers enter, barefoot, to crush the grapes.

There is science behind this: manually trampling grapes is the best way to ensure that grape juice is expelled without also crushing seeds and grape stems (which release more bitter flavors). Human feet also add some heat to the process, starting fermentation while allowing optimal contact between skins and juice, what some say leads to better red wines.

It is certainly more time commitment, since the treaders walk in a round trip line through the lagar for hours before the process is completed, so not all the wineries of Douuro Valley use this method.

Of the wineries that still use grape stomatons in their winemaking process, several offer tourists the opportunity to get involved behind the scene. So, of course, I had to try it!

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A Harvest Douuro Valley tour: my experience

When Elliot and I were planning our annual birthday anniversary trip last year, I suggested that we went to Portugal. I wanted to go to Azores Islandsand Elliot requested that we also added some time in Porto so that I could drink wine from Puerto de la Fuente. During my planning research, I realized that our trip would coincide with the harvest season in the Douuro Valley, so we decided to add two nights there too.

There are several wineries that offer practical harvest season tours that include grape stomatons, but not all are easy to find in my experience.

A couple of options that I found include:

In general, you cannot start reserving these tours until mid -summer, when the wineries will have a better idea of when the harvest will take place. Most of the wineries harvest all their grapes during the year within a period of 2-3 weeks, at some point between September and October. So obviously you can’t reserve a tour outside those weeks!

We ended up reserving This tour with live tourswhich included half a day of harvest activities. They also offered a broader availability calendar, since I think they work with more than one vineyard for these tours.

Grape harvest

Since we rent a car in Porto for our time in the Douuro Valley, we find the tour in the designated winery, which for us was fifth gives bird. (The company also offers transfers from Pinhão.) We met there at 10:30 am, and finally presented us to our guide for the morning and was given our first refreshing glass of Douuro wine.

Then we all put on straw hats and headed to the vineyard for about 45 minutes of grape cutting.

They gave us some scissors, a small cube and some tips, and then released us in the vines. Actually, we were in the Duero during some really bad forest fires, so I was very happy that the vineyard we went were not in a steep hill!

We cut grapes for less than an hour, filling several huge cubes as a group (and also eating a lot on the road). However, it was a hot and sweaty job, and I think we all ended with greater appreciation for people who do this for hours a day during the harvest.

Then we returned to the winery for another glass of wine and a short break. And then the real culminating point began!

Trampling grapes

They took us to a large barn then where a lagar was already full of partially crushed red grapes. Some other routes mention that they provide shorts to wear to step on the grapes, but all in my group simply uploaded their shorts or pants and climbed into the lagar.

Our guide explained the traditional way of stepping on the grapes: hook the elbows in a line and walk slowly through the grapes until the rhythm of the music that is reproduced. We tried it, during the 30 seconds before things became high -step people and turning in the grape goo to the sound of live accordion music that is being reproduced for us.

The grape trampling in practice is … soft. And messy! But it was also quite fun.

We were alone in the lagar for about 10 minutes before our guide lead us to dry our legs. I could have happily doing this, but I can definitely verify “trampling grapes to make the wine” on my desire list.

(And to anyone who feels rejected at the idea of the bare feet in the grapes that make their wine … do not stress. All this happens before the fermentation process, and that The process kills anything disgusting that can be floating there with all skins, leaves, stems, seeds, insects, etc.)

After trampling, we learned a little about the history of the winery where we were (on another glass of wine, of course!), And then we returned to the main building for traditional lunch.

The winery that we visited the hosts of many tour groups, so lunch felt like any other lunch in the winery in which it had been. But the general harvest tour was very funny!

The verdict

These harvest routes may differ depending on which one reserves what a winery goes. But, in general, they are a unique way of experiencing vinification in the Douuro Valley, and I am very happy to have done it!

It is also very easy to add a harvest route to a larger trip to the Valley of Douuro Oa Portugal, so I would say it visits it at the right time of the year.

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Where to stay in the Valle de Duero

While you can make a day trip to the Douuro Valley (even for a tour like this), I recommend staying for one night or two if possible! For the harvest season, many of the tours occur in the vicinity of weight of Régua, which is an excellent part of the Douuro Valley to rely.

We stayed in Casa do RomezalA family guest house with incredible views of vineyards (and also make their own wine). We could not enjoy the outdoor areas as much as we expected due to forest fires in the hard at that time, but I would still recommend this place.

And weight of Régua is also a surprisingly excellent place for food lovers! A couple of places that I would recommend for dinner include Tasca da Quinta, or Maleiro and Anetible & table. You can try local food (and wine, of course) and all these places.

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Would you like to choose and trample grapes in the Douuro Valley?