Post your experiences of travel, especially for the Douro region. Make recommendations for places to stay and visit or ask advice from those that have already been there.
This visit will consume an entire day for you and it's most certainly not a half hour show round a vineyard with a 10 year old tawney to follow.
The first thing to do is book your train ticket from Pinhao to Vesuvio, it's the only way to travel and to arrive, the views are splendid and it's a lot quicker than the road.
Pinhao station is worth a look and the Vesuvio station is literally a platform with in our case Luis standing by the estate land rover waiting to take us the 400 yards to the house.
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The house is caught in a time warp, the Symington’s added the balcony where lunch was served but pretty much the rest of the house is stuck in the past with the exception of electricity.
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So after a short break after the train we go in effect to the top of the hill behind the estate, sounds dull if you say it quick but .....
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By the time we arrive you can just about see the house and a table is laid out with Grahams Blend no 5 and tonic plus a charcuterie select and some olives. The location has a derelict stone building used in the past to house workers but the view all round is just stunning.
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Last edited by mcoulson on 12:53 Thu 18 Sep 2025, edited 3 times in total.
After some considerable time just taking in the view and listening to Luis description we climb back in and work our way back down to the house.
Theres a small dining room set up with three sets of glasses again with history all over the room. There is an accounting book with lists of purchases from way back when.
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After more description of the house and it's history we get down to business which a pair of reds and a trio of ports all of which very pleasant and this turns into a discussion about which is nicer between 03 and 11 Vesuvio which is really an exercise in picking holes thin air and side tracks the 96 which was also really very drinkable.
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Lunch next .... which is served on the veranda which is the Symington addition to the building. The view however is perfect and apart from the odd cruise ship chugging past it's basically silent.
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I have one picture of lunch because I was too busy eating and enjoying the view, mushroom starter, cold melon soup, duck and then a Portuguese Crème Brûlée all of which was very good and worthy of a high end restaurant.
Mandy's main course was a vegetarian dish that disappeared so that was great as well.
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The wines and the port have followed us to lunch by some form of magic but since the Crème Brûlée really needed a Tawny a 20 year Grahams arrived and the starters really needed a white so an Altano Reserve was also produced.
By now we have got to 2pm or so, we have been round the vineyard, round the house, tested a really wide range of really nice wines and ports and had a great lunch with stunning views. So I'm running out of ideas about how to improve the day.
Easy - port tongs and a bottle of 98 Vesuvio ! If you have not seen this before then you have a front row seat which is followed by a spectacular port.
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So here’s the full lunch line up.
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Unbelievably we are running out of time, we arrived on the 10:30 train and have tickets for the 17:27 return train so we have to tear ourselves away from the veranda and on to the cellars a short walk away.
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Normal rules apply here - the smell is as you would expect and there is a feeling of port developing away in a tranquil environment.
Our timing is spot on and the granite lagares and in the process of being filled and there’s lots of activity going on to find just the right point to more the process forward.
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Just in case we are feeling like there wasn't enough choice of wines for us to try in the corner of the cellar (actually quite a large corner) are barrels of Vesuvio specific Colheita in various years, you can ONLY get hold of this by doing the tour and it's a great touch, 1992 Vesuvio Colheita tastes ....... well, you will just need to visit and try it for yourself.
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My thanks have to go to Maria for organising the day for me and to Luis for this hard work during the day, somebody must have been cooking but I don't know their name but I thank them as well.
Wonderful writeup, Martin! I've been to Vesuvio several times, but your visit seems to have been a little more in-depth. For example, it's possible that I've been in that barrel room before, but we definitely did not get to taste the 1992 Colheita directly from the cask! (I've had it with lunch before, though.)
