Scott and CJs Travel Blog: Shopping, more Port houses and Yateman Wine Cellar

Today we started out with a breakfast at our apartment and then went out to the “shopping street” as we call it since that is where all of the high end stores are in Porto. This is also where the Majestic Cafe is. We did some shopping and then we had high tea at the Majestic Cafe. We did some more shopping afterwords and then we went back to the apartment. After resting a little we went back to Vila Nova de Gaia where we went to a few more port houses.

Sandeman - We arrive at Sandman and found that it wasn’t open yet so we sat down at the cafe next door and had lunch. After lunch we went to Sandeman and did a port tasting. The ports were very good I have had Sandeman before and I think they do the most advertising of all the port houses. There are Sandeman products everywhere and you see their signs scattered all around Vila Nova de Gaia.

A Ramos Pinto - Ramos Pinto is a Small port house that produces nice ports. Not a huge selection but still very nice. We had a 7 year old white port among others it was good but again compared to the white port that we had at Burmester nothing we have tried in Portugal beat it. I wish we could get this wonderful port here in the US.

W & J Graham - Graham’s is somewhat apart form the rest of the other port houses. We had to do some walking to get there most of it was up hill. Huffing and puffing when we got to the top we were exhausted. Good thing the building was air conditioned. We told the person there that we had an appointment at the Yeatman at 3:00pm and we couldn’t be late. They said no problem (Famous last words) So wee went though the tour and had our tasting. By the time we were done we were very late for our appointment.

The person at Graham’s called us a taxi to take us to the Yeatmen. We arrived 20 minutes late but it was no problem. We were greeted by the Sommelier and she took us down to the Yateman’s wine cellar. She said there was 25,000 bottles of wine down here mostly Portuguese wines. It was a very impressive cellar. Wile we were down there we met the Cellar master. The idea behind having so many Portuguese wines (besides they are in Portugal) is to promote the Portuguese wines. The hotel’s activities all revolve around wine. So this is an excellent place for a wine lover to come and experience the wines of Portugal. We called another taxi to take us to the Gondola which takes us up above all the port houses and deposit’s us at the top of the hill for an easy walk back to our apartment. Once back at the apartment after a little rest Shirley started the fish dinner. It was fantastic! the fish was cooked to perfection. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the kitchen but it’s very small and simple. So when you produce a wonderful meal with a kitchen like this you defiantly got to give credit to the fantastic cook!. After dinner we drank some port and played canasta all night. Another wonderful day.