Winery Time!
For our first full day in Portugal, we decided to take a walk to a local boutique winery, Sapateiro. It’s less than a 15 min walk from our apartment. We booked a “tasting”, which we naively assumed would be like one of the many tastings we have had in Niagara and other places. We were completely mistaken!
First off, they do not do walk in tastings, they are by private appointment only. Jon booked us an appointment for 11 a.m. It was quite an experience being the only guests at the winery.
We started on our walk, which was a beautiful experience in and of itself. It was all cobblestone, windy back roads through the country, passing so many cute old stone buildings, fruit trees, grape vines, religious shrines, and beautiful flowers. The walk was mostly downhill, with a beautiful view of the valley and mountains as we walked. It was a stunning walk. The walk back uphill with a backpack full of wine in the heat of the day was a little less stunning!
Sylvie met us and brought us into their family winery when we arrived, explaining in great detail all about the region, grapes, history, and other fascinating details about this specific winery and the wine industry in general. We are in the Vinho Verde region. We are very close to the Douro region, which is about half an hour away. Sylvie was a wealth of information and a truly sweet and lovely person.
After came the best part – the tasting! We got to sample five wines. A Rose, three very different and delicious whites, and one lighter red that is served chilled. “Sample” is not quite the right word. Where we expected a splash of each to taste, the reality was a beautiful balcony set up with a table overlooking their vineyard.
There were snacks including olives in honey, various breads and crackers with olive oil for dipping, peanuts, strawberries, and raspberries. And each “taste” was a glass of the wine. We learned all about each wine as we sipped and munched away, looking over their gorgeous property, complete with a view of the region behind. It was spectacular! They were so kind to make a homemade cinnamon-mint lemonade for the girls and provided them games to play and snacks to keep them occupied while we sampled and learned.
Our tasting lasted 2.5 hours. Given the amount of wine we were sampling, that’s probably a good thing! We ended up buying four bottles of wine. Their Rose is hands down my favourite. It’s so crisp and refreshing and tastes like strawberries. It’s delicious. We may have already finished the bottle we bought… good thing they are only a 15 min walk away!
In addition to the amazing tasting they do there, you’re also invited to walk through the vineyard or their fruit orchard. The girls were beyond thrilled to be allowed to pick fruit that was in season from their trees to bring home with us. The girls picked two lemons each, two of which went to making a lavender lemonade this afternoon (with lavender growing in our front terrace at our apartment).
The girls were also beyond thrilled they had a very friendly puppy there, Chico, who we got to pet and play fetch with.
We have done a lot of wine tastings all over the place – BC, Ontario, Michigan, Bordeaux, Australia, and Spain. But this was the most unique and amazing of all our tasting experiences we have had to date. It helps that every single wine we tasted was delicious, too! We also loved their quirky little “fortune cookie” corks with cute sayings. There are apparently 23 sayings in all.
We asked if they get busy during the month of July (work-wise). They don’t, other than doing some hand bottling of their wines. We did tell them that if they need any help with anything over the five weeks we are here, that we would love to volunteer our time to come back to the winery and help them out. We are seriously hoping they take us up on our offer! It would be such a fun experience for all of us.
They had plenty of other wines there, which we did not try. They also do a wine and tapas pairing. Suffice it to say we will be back there again before we leave here to try more of their wines, complete with a tapas pairing.