The Port Houses in Vila Nova de Gaia and the Yateman Wine Dinner

Today we went to the local fish market to get some fresh fish for tomorrows dinner. The fish market was small but all the fish were very fresh. We picked out 1 large fish and 3 small ones. Shirley was going to cook up the fish and add some potatoes and asparagus for dinner tomorrow. After we got back from the fish market I fixed breakfast (Eggs, Bacon and potatoes and orange juice). After breakfast we walked over to the Livraria Lello Book Store. This is probably the most interesting book store in the world. It’s inside was spectacular! Next we walked down the hill (huge hill, lots of steps!) and across the Gustave Eiffel bridge (yes he is the one that built the Eiffel tower in Paris) to Vila Nova de Gaia. As I explained earlier in the blog this is the place where a lot of the larger port houses from the Douro valley warehouse and age their ports. Most of them have tasting rooms and tours of there storage facility. We opted to skip the tours today and just do the tastings. This allowed us to hit more port houses through out the day. We visited the following port houses:

Burmester - The consensus was that this port house had the best ports. We tried a 10 year old white port which was wonderful! This gave us a better appreciation of white ports. Unfortunately they do not distribute to the US or Canada so we will have to go back!

C.N. Kopke - This is the oldest port house in Portugal. It was established in 1638. We found their port to be good but nothing special.

Calem - Calem was a bigger port house then Burmester and Kopke although they are all owned by the same company (Sogevinus) along with Barros and Gilberts. Calem’s port I though was very good better then Kopke’s but still not as good as Burmester’s. When we went up to ask them to do just the tasting (all port houses want you to do the tour and then the tasting) they were not sure how to handle it at first. Then they walked us though the warehouse to the tasting room and poured us some ports. 

Sandeman - We went to Sandeman but we had come in behind 100 other people so they would not let us into the tasting room even though it was empty right now. They said that it was reserved for the 100 people that were taking the tour and we would have to come back later. We decided to come back to this one another day.

Other than Sandeman you will notice that we were going to smaller and less known (at least to us) port houses. We figured that we had port form the big guys so we wanted to try the port from the houses we have never tasted before. After this we went back up the hill to our apartment. After resting a little in on the patio overlooking Vila Nova Do Gaia we got ready for dinner. We took a taxi over to the Yeatmen and sat down in the lounge to have appetizers and drinks before the dinner. We met the Wine Director her name was Beatriz Machado. She is an attractive young woman in-charge all of the wine programs at the Yeatman. She has developed the all of the programs at the Yeatmen since it’s opening. Quite impressive. We finished our appetizers and headed down to the private dinner room where we were having the wine paring dinner. We were escorted to the table where the wine director was sitting so she could explain what was going on in english. The meal is as follows...

Chef’s Appetizers paired with Morgado do Perdigao Loureiro 2011.

Sardines: Cream of Sardines from with goose barnacles and Mussels Paired with Morgado do Perdigao Loureiro 2011.

Hake Kokotchas: Breaded with Panko , cucumber spaghetti and cream of smoked yoghurt.  Paired with Casa de Pacos Superior 2010.

Lilly of the Azores: Salsify, peppers and aubergine paired with Casa do Capitao Mor Alvarinho reserva 2010 Magnum.

Nectarines: Different textures and combinations paired with Fernao Pires 2011.

The meal was wonderful and the paring were excellent. We had a wonderful time. After dinner we went up to the lounge and had some coffee and chocolates. Once we were finished the Wine Director invited us to tour the extensive wine cellar tomorrow. we accepted and had them call us a taxi to take us home.

The fish market near our apartment.

Brumester Port House.

Kopke Port House.

Calem Port House.

Quinta do Noval Port House. We went to this one on the 19th.

In the early days boats use to carry the port from the Douro Valley down the Duro river.

The Yateman Hotel across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia.

View from the Yateman down the river at sunset.

Having drinks in the lounge at the Yateman Hotel.