When Andrew Jefford first travelled on the Douro valley railway, which follows the river that cleaves its way through Portugals' Port country, it was a learning experience. Here, fourteen years on, he returns as a labour of love.
Many affairs only come to light with a confession, and this one is no
exception. I had counted on taking the secret with me to the grave,
but circumstance - and Waitrose Food Illustrated - has winkled
it from me. It's why I'm here, after all, so you're all entitled to
know the squalid truth.
Some 15 years ago, working as a publishing editor, I was frustrated;
I wanted to write; I loved wine. Through the grapevine (where else?)
word reached me of an opening to write the copy for a book on Port.
The publisher wasn't paying much, and it had to be done quickly.
"Can I try?" I asked. "Sign here and get going," they said. I wrote
the book in the evenings, at weekends, on the way to work. There
was only one snag: I'd never visited Portugal. Yes, Port: An
Essential Guide to the Classic Drink (Merehurst, 1988) was written
by an author who was no more familiar with a Port lodge than he was
with the Khyber Pass.
Even someone as naïve as I was realised that this was a handicap,
so with great hesitation I asked Michael Symington, the doyen of Port
shippers, if he would read the manuscript. He agreed, and suggested
many wise and helpful corrections. Better than that, on learning
(with indulgent incredulity) that I'd never travelled west of
Barcelona, he gave instructions for me to be enrolled on the next
Dow's Port press trip. Thus it was that, on 14 May 1988, I found
myself rolling out of the blue-tiled São Benito station in Oporto
on the legendary Douro train.
The thrill of that train journey; the ceaseless practical jokes of my
travelling companions; and, above all, the mountainous embrace of the
Douro valley affected me deeply. Agreed, it was too late to change the
book, but not too late to change my life. Three months later, I quit
the day job and slithered onto the oily pole of freelance wine writing.
Fourteen years and a few tumbles later, I am still here. And back,
with great good fortune, among the humbling schist terraces of the
Douro.
Confession over. This is Port country. Spain, as geographers will
know, is Europe's second most mountainous nation after Switzerland.
Those high peaks don't often spill over the border into its neighbour
Portugal, but the Douro valley is one of the places where they do.
The river that has cut a deep trench through these stone shoulders
actually rises in eastern Spain, where it is called the Duero. Duero
or Douro: the name means the same, although this 'river of gold' is
now more associated with wine than it is with heavy metals. On this
Lusitanian side, its summer trickle and winter torrent has now given
way to the year-round placidity of lakes interrupted by dams.
There is no vinescape anywhere else in the world like this remote
giant's backyard. There is nowhere where grapes are won from stone
with quite as much sweat; nowhere where grape skins are still trodden
late into the night by villagers who seem to have stepped from a
medieval altarpiece; nowhere where geological fury is so readily
palpable in new black wine as here. I love everything about it, even
its mosquitoes and flies, its ubiquitous cabbage soup and its mangy
running dogs.
In 14 years, of course, there have been changes, though happily this
landscape is such a cussed one that the bloodthirsty new roads of
which the Portuguese are so fond remain hidden away behind the hills.
The Douro valley has, to this day, only one main thoroughfare: its
heroic and spectacular railway. Built between 1873 and 1887, it climbs
steadily up out of Oporto through the vinho verde country of the
Minho, across the Sierra de Marão and, joining forces with the
river at Juncal, follows its course all the way to Pocinho, 52
stations from its point of departure. The views are arresting, and
the pleasure of the journey is intensified further by the possibility
of standing on the carriage footplate, gazing down at the darting
kingfishers and motionless herons, as the rushing air tugs at your
hair. 'Não abrir com o comboio em andamento!' ('Do not open doors
while the train is moving!') chides a notice, but no one pays any
attention. Since the line is still used as a footpath by those wishing
to take the shortest and least undulating route through the valley,
the train moans constantly. This, indeed, is the only mechanical sound
you will ever hear in the upper Douro. I spent one night at the
Symingtons' Quinta (farm) do Ves�vio, whose train halt is the
penultimate one before Pocinho. The only ruffle in the silence,
once the train had passed, was produced by the carp and the perch
jumping in the water.
Other pleasures? There have been many, both social and solitary. The
Symington group (which makes the Ports of Warre, Dow and Graham among
others) is one of the world's most astonishing wine companies, not
least because so many Symington family members succeed in working
harmoniously with each other within it. They are a kind of genetic
army that has marched, since Andrew James Symington first arrived in
Oporto in 1882, through the Port trade with the unbending
determination of a Hannibal or a Caesar. I've learned much from them,
both by talking and tasting; even in their off-duty hospitality they
work ferociously hard. Best of all is the chance to taste vintage Port
in its infancy, a quarter of a century too soon, since it explodes
in the mouth like a landmine full of pepper, plums and blackberries.
These are vineyards which can only be delivered from their motherly
mountains by violence (bulldozers, dynamite); a glass of two-week-old
port, fresh from the treading trough or lagar, conveys that hurtling
energy in scent and flavour.
The lonely moments, though, have been just as precious as those
convivial midnights at the Quinta do Bomfim. I remember walking high
above the vineyard terraces with The Food Programme's Derek Cooper,
collecting almonds to take home to the cold north for winter; I
remember listening to the soft, spy's whistle of a Scops owl, my
first, in the heart of the night. And on that first visit 14 years
ago, I rose early on Sunday morning, my head pounding, and walked up
behind the Quinta to where a new vineyard of Touriga Francesa vines
had just been planted. The tiny plants had been eased into bare stone;
the 8am May sun already seemed coruscatingly bright; the vines were
unirrigated. How could they survive? But the vine is a tenacious
plant, and the Douro's foliate schist is oddly nourishing. Those
vines have now grown as tall as I am; I have drunk their juice;
they will outlast me. I simply count myself lucky to have been a
momentary observer of this fierce valley's long, soul-warming history.