Lost to the diversions of dozy villages, walled towns and ancient castles in a landscape of lakes, trees and sheltering mountains, ROSE DOYLEtakes a tour north of Lisbon to the winemaking region of the Tagus Valley
THE DELIGHTS of the Tagus Valley north of Lisbon are much enjoyed by the Portuguese and not half enough by the rest of us. The Portuguese, being a modestly proud people, knew nothing of the joys and earthy pleasures awaiting when a group of us headed into the region for five glorious days last month.
We were nine, including Manuel who did the driving and Jose, our incomparably informed guide/raconteur. The days were warm, with a slight breeze, the cocksure light of summer replaced by a mellow gold. Septembers in Portugal are benign, people told us. Same as in Ireland we said, lying through our teeth as we lapped up the luxuries of a world at ease with itself, sampled food and wine, lost ourselves to the diversions of dozy villages, walled towns and ancient castles in a landscape of lakes, trees and sheltering mountains.
We listened too, to tales historical, mythological and downright invented. They’re great storytellers in Portugal, every bit as voluble as we are ourselves.
Talk isn’t the only thing we have in common. History is everywhere in the Tagus Valley, fascinating centuries of it. The early Celtic influence of agriculturalists and pastoralists continues, tales of the later Roman and Teutonic people are alive and well, no one has forgotten how the Moors from Muslim north Africa arrived in the 8th century nor how Portugal, later reconquered for Christianity, was divvied up between the church, nobles and orders such as the Knights Templar.
People take a quiet pride in the centuries of maritime expansion in Portugal’s one-time domination of world trade. Spain’s 60-year domination isn’t much spoken of, but an earthquake in 1755 is acknowledged as the beginning of the end for Portugal as a world power.
A 1910 revolution deposing the monarchy might have happened yesterday, ditto a military coup in 1926 that set up a dictatorship and the bloodless 1974 coup that led the way to Portugal joining the European Economic Community in 1986.
IN THE EARLY afternoon of the first day, less than an hour into the trip, we stopped for a wine tasting and to have lunch at Quinta da Romeira in Bucelas, one of the country’s oldest wine exporting areas.
Portugal has a huge range of native grape varieties and, though French grapes are grown too, the native varieties are what give Portuguese wine its exciting difference. Portuguese wine is nurtured, blended, nuanced, perfected and produced to be enjoyed with food and is as ubiquitous to conversation as history.
At Quinta da Romeira, we sipped and dined in the elegantly understated, grape stencilled dining room of a restored 18th-century manor house and enjoyed an initiating lunch of the region’s rich, seriously comforting home-style cooking.
The earlyish hour notwithstanding, we took sublime pleasure in a Morgado de Sta Catherina Reserva wine, made from the local Arinto grape. We managed a Quinta de Pancas Reserva 2008 too, this a blend of grapes and, to my relatively naive palate, a red wine to consider dying for.
Expectations high we went on, through a landscape dappled green with eucalyptus, pine, cork and olive trees and, on low slopes across the valley, ripened vineyards. The roads were good – Portugal has benefitted in ways similar to ourselves from EU membership.
Villages too have been rebuilt as a consequence of membership, the ubiquitous bungalow blight design made bearable by the addition of a traditional blue and ochre trim.
The heat was leaving the sun as we arrived at the family estate of Quinta da Chocapalha where, undaunted and unbowed, we set about tasting more wines, eating more food. Wines have been made at Chocapalha since the 16th century, and for a long time by a Scot called Diogo Duff.
But the light, bright Chocapalha Branco 2007 we enjoyed, along with an oaked, velvety rich Chocapalha Tinto 2006, were a tribute to Alice and Paulo Tavares da Silva who have been developing Chocapalha wines for a quarter of a century now.
Obidos, that night’s port of call, is a small, elevated town of cobbled, medieval streets, craft shops, atmospheric bars, dazzling churches (one dating to the 8th century), a Roman castle (now a pousada) and a mosaic of white and blue painted houses, all contained within 1,565m of wall.
Obidos looks and feels medieval, though its real beginnings are uncertain. If heights aren’t a problem take a walk along the rampants; it’ll give you great, sweeping views to the Atlantic coast and a shivering sense of life’s vulnerability.
A glass or two of Ginjinha d’Obidos (made from the local ginja cherry) will calm your nerves. It’s great stuff, especially late in the evening in the Ibn Errik Rex bar, though the hanging bottles may well set you wondering . . .
The nest day, we were nicely acclimatised by the time we met Vasco d’Avillez, a man of no small standing in Portugal with undeniable Irish roots. A wine writer and head of CVR Lisbon, the organisation that certifies Lisbon regional wines, d’Avillez is a 10th generation descendant of Hugh O’Neill who, when he fled Ireland with the Flight of the Earls in 1607, spent time in Lisbon. Tall, sandy-haired, freckled and highly entertaining, Senhor d’Avillez seemed to us every inch an O’Neill.
The 1755 earthquake was a subject of conversation when we visited Quinta Do Gradil, which produces some 800,000 litres of Portugal’s finest wines yearly, 70 per cent red and 30 per cent white.
The winding approach road, through hectares of flourishing vine, ended close to the majestic shell of the 18th-century home of the Marquis of Pombal, the man credited with rebuilding Lisbon after the earthquake.
Helped by a tasting of Quinta Do Gradil Obidos DOC 2010, we set of for Santarem, one of Portugal’s most historic cities – though not before stopping to taste at a couple of lively, younger wineries in Almeirim.
Both Falua Almeirim and Fiuza Bright sell to the Irish market, the former, under the popular Tagus Creek New Portugal label, combinings tradition with modern methods. The latter treated us to the unique pleasure of a tasting of first white, then red grapes as they fermented in stainless steel vessels. Heady stuff.
IN SANTAREM, we walked hilly streets, crossed sunny squares and came to the Portos do Sol (Sun Gate) a high, open garden full of shady trees where there was once a Moorish cidadel and where you can now share panoramic views and perfumed plants with the city’s young lovers.
We took time to see the Igreja da Graca too, a soaring, light-filled 15th-century church with a stunning rose window.
We took to the river after that, crossing the terrifyingly blue, deep waters of the Castelo de Bode’s dam on the Barco S Cristovao.
Another robust, regional-style lunch prepared us for the upcoming visit to the World Heritage Monument of the Convento de Cristo (Convent of the Order of Christ) at Tomar.
The Convento de Cristo is both extraordinary and extraordinarily beautiful, fusing centuries of Portuguese history in an architectural dazzle of cloisters and examples of Romanesque, Gothic, medieval and 19th-century neo-classical styles. Tomar itself is a gentle, unassuming country town.
The Tagus had long been beckoning, so we struck out, across its waters to Almoural Castle, perched on the rock that is Almoural island. The latter has been occupied since God was a boy, the castle merely since it was a stronghold for the Knights Templar.
Abandoned for centuries, it is now a national monument with winding steps to a turret giving views of the Tagus as it meanders through fertile plains under Portugal’s bright sun.
Get there
Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies from Dublin and Cork to Lisbon