Portuguese wine, tasted slowly and with a guide who knows the producers

The valley opens up all at once, a little after you leave Porto behind. Whole hillsides are cut into terraces, and the vines run down toward the bronze-coloured river. It is the oldest demarcated wine region on earth and a World Heritage Site, and people still prune, harvest and taste here the way they always have.

We drive up slowly and stop at a family quinta, or estate, that is expecting us. You walk between the rows, then taste with the valley below you. Wear shoes with good grip for the vineyards. Lunch, looking out over the vines, is often the part people remember most.

The famous port cellars are not in Porto. They sit across the river, in Vila Nova de Gaia, where the barrels have rested for centuries in the cool air by the Douro. Walk over the Luís I Bridge on foot, with the city at your feet and the rabelo boats moored below, and the tasting has already started.

Inside a historic cellar, we taste at an unhurried pace with no crowd. This is where you can ask the questions a first-timer really has: why a young ruby tastes fruity, what gives a tawny its notes of walnut and caramel after ten or twenty years, and when a vintage is worth keeping for a special occasion.

Good wine is not always a long drive. The Setúbal Peninsula sits just over half an hour from Lisbon, and it makes a sensible first wine day for an easy start. Expect the sweet, perfumed Moscatel, then the Castelão reds, which want a table and good company.

Our visits are to cellars where the owner may still greet you at the door. If the cellar is generous, you taste straight from the cask, and we pair each glass with cheese, olive oil and bread. Staying in Lisbon? We can set up a quiet tasting in the city late in the afternoon, when nothing is rushed.

Which wines do you know? Tell us what you usually drink and the day starts from there. Is it only for couples? No. It suits one person, a couple, or a small group of friends, never a bus of forty strangers. Hermes is your guide. A Brazilian who has made Lisbon home, he knows these quintas and cellars up close and speaks Portuguese or English, whichever you like.

Nothing comes pre-packaged. We talk first, then build the day around you, from the departure time to the number of tastings. Send us your dates and group size, and we reply on WhatsApp with one price, everything included, and no commitment.