The Douro Valley in a Case

To make good table wine in the Douro Valley you have to be a good viticulturalist. You also have to be a very, very good winemaker. It's one of the most unforgiving terroirs on earth; and if you apply what you know of making Port to making table wines you'll come a very big cropper indeed.

To understand the difference and why it matters, think of how Port is made: super-ripe, darkly coloured grapes are given a brief pounding to extract as much of that colour and flavor as possible; then the juice is fortified. It's all about darkness and concentration because it's designed only to be drunk in 10, or 20, or 50 years' time.

Extract table wine grapes that much and the result – in such a hot, dry place where the grapes are small and thick-skinned – will be undrinkable. You have to pull back – right back. Extraction must be light and gentle, or the tannins will be mouth-puckeringly chewy. The grapes must not be overripe; and the wines must have only a brief acquaintance with oak, if that. "We learnt that from Bruno [Prats]," says Charles Symington, winemaker at Symington Family Estates. "You need a very light touch." The temptation for inexperienced winemakers, faced with those super-robust Douro tannins, is to throw new oak at them to soften them; it's a mistake.

And it partly explains the enormous differences in quality you'll find in the Douro. The best wines are terrific: taut, complex, poised and refined. Lesser wines can be earthy, chewy and clumsy. It's all in the tannins, and how they're handled. And, of course, in the terroir.

Clearly, most top Port vineyards are going to be too hot for table wines. But that's easy enough: Port vineyards tend to be low down, and higher-altitude vineyards suddenly become more interesting. Granite can be promising, too, for the lightness and freshness it brings. Up in the Douro Superior, near the Spanish border, the soil can be varied and the terrain less steep – you can even mechanise here. But even in the Cima Corgo, the prime Port area, there are plenty of spots that have table wine potential. Dirk Niepoort's father bought Quinta do Napoles, in the heart of Port country, for Port. Dirk didn't think it would work for Port, but it works extremely well for table wine, especially red.

Is there a gradual redefinition of the Douro, as people work out which bits are good for table wine? Up to a point, yes. But you can't draw firm boundaries: it's too complicated for that. At Vesuvio, for example, the Symingtons use the very highest vines, which ripen 10 to 15 days later, for table wine, and the rest for Port. Oh, and they have different winemaking teams, too. Just to make sure.

The old guard

Barca Velha, Casa Ferreirinha The granddaddy of them all, with its first vintage in 1952. It's only released in the best years, with the wine in other years being released as Reserva. The final decision on whether to release a Barca Velha is never hurried; it all depends on how long the wine is going to live. Wines released as Barca Velha must be very long-lived. They're put on sale when they begin to be drinkable – the 2008 is at that point of balance between youthful tension and mature complexity, and according to winemaker Luis Sottomayor it will reach a plateau in four or five years. At the moment it's black-fruited, supple and detailed; the tannins are present but very silky, and there's beautiful depth and restrained power.

Casa Ferreirinha, by the way, is named after 19th Century matriarch Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira – who we'll meet again.

Duas Quintas Reserva, Ramos Pinto Ramos Pinto has been making Port since the 19th Century and, like most of the Portuguese-owned houses, concentrated its marketing on Portugal and Brazil, so Anglophone markets hardly heard of it. At home in the Douro Valley it invested huge time and money in research into vineyards and winemaking, and this had two effects. One was that having spent rather too much, it had to put itself up for sale, and in 1990 was bought by Champagne Roederer. The other was that all that research produced a pioneering table wine, Duas Quintas.

It was pioneering because it was light, fresh and balanced. The chewy Douro tannins had been tamed and turned to prettiness. The first vintage was 1990, with the Reserva version following in 1991; and both have got better and better in the years since. The two quintas of the name are Ervamoira, on the hot, dry banks of the river Côa; this gives density and power. Bons Ares, the other quinta, is higher, cooler, and planted on granite soil, for freshness. Mix them together in a blend of Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta da Barca, and you get this supple, pure, refined and weighty wine. The nose is all deep vanilla plums and looks like a blockbuster; but on the palate it elongates into finesse, freshness and transparency. The weight is worn lightly; it has a dense heart and plenty of concentration, with flavours of rock rose, plums and chocolate, and the tannins are velvety.

The winemaker projects

The Douro is attracting winemakers from outside to invest in projects, and outsiders always bring a new point of view. The winemaker, as ever, becomes part of the terroir.

Post Scriptum, Prats + Symington Bruno Prats used to run Château Cos d'Estournel in Saint-Estèphe; since that was sold in 1998 he has been doing his own thing in various parts of the world. In 1999, he teamed up with the Symingtons of Port fame, who were just embarking on table wine. The quintas that supply the grapes are Roriz, which used to make entirely Port and now make almost entirely table wines, and Perdiz.

They called the wine Chryseia; Post Scriptum is the second wine, and I've always preferred it for its greater vivacity. Chryseia is imposing and serious; Post Scriptum, to my palate, more frankly delicious. This 2015, the current vintage, was aged in second-fill French oak and has a lovely nose, complex and floral, with a juicy, fresh, layered palate of garrigue herbs, rocks and chocolate, very concentrated and tense, rich and silky. The grape mix is Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca. Mercifully, there has been relatively little planting of international varieties in the Douro.

© GetYourGuide | Sun-baked slopes offer the right amount of heat to ripen the grapes needed for Port.

Duorum With a name like João Portugal Ramos, it's hard to see the maker of this wine as an incomer. But he's not a Douro native, and spent his career before this making wine in other parts of Portugal. His style has always been modern but not overdone. In 2007, he teamed up with José Mario Soares Franco, who made the wine at Ferreira for many years. This 2015, a blend of Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional and Tinta Roriz, is dark and intense, full of elderberry and bilberry fruit, spicy, fresh, pure and tense, with very fine tannins, beautifully handled, and notes of damson and thyme. A very classy wine, the power of which emerges slowly on the palate.

Pinteivera, Dos Lusíadas Rhône winemaker Michel Chapoutier has more joint ventures than most people, and this one in the Douro makes three wines; this, and a red and white both called Eleivera. This is the project's top red. It's Touriga Nacional (many people's top choice for table wines) made with French precision and delicacy, and full of cistus and garrigue notes, warm spice and stones, balsamic and herb flavours. It's complex, characterful and layered; and it has French fingerprints all over it.

The Portuguese new wave

A new generation of local winemakers arose in the 1990s and after, often using grapes sourced from old vineyards, with individuality and terroir expression as their aims. They surged to the fore once it became possible to ship Port direct from the Douro Valley, rather than having to age it in Vila Nova da Gaia down on the coast: they've reinvigorated the whole industry. And if you can work out who's related to who, and how, you deserve a prize.

Quinta da Manoella Vinhas Velhas, Wine & Soul Sandra Tavares da Silva and Jorge Serôdio Borges started out in 2001 as just-marrieds without a vineyard to their name; but their wines were remarkable. In 2009 they inherited Quinta da Manoella, 12 ha of vines in the Pinhão Valley, and the old vines there, a field blend of a century old or more, produce this beauty. The grapes are foot-trodden in stone lagares, and 90 percent of the French oak is new, and hardly shows; the wine has a brisk freshness that balances the weight. It's deep, serious and spicy, with tight, linear tannins; there are floral notes, and hints of chocolate and blackberry. It's young, but it would go a treat with steak right now.

Vallado Reserva Field Blend Quinta do Vallado was one of many quintas owned by Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, and her descendents still own it. The current generation are Francisco Olazabal and Francisco Ferreira: you can't go far in the Douro without meeting a Ferreira (or, for that matter, a Francisco). They focus equally on table wine and Port, both made in a rich, dense style that has become fresher over the years. This field blend, a vineyard over 100 years old planted with 45 varieties including Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Touriga Franca and Tinta Barocca, is taut, with exhilarating verticality; very ripe black fruits and spice but as refreshing as shade on a hot day. It goes with curry, too.

Quinta do Vale Meão Tinto There are more Olazabals here at Quinta do Vale Meão, where Vito, Xito and Luisa are the fifth and sixth generations to own it. It was another of Doña Antónia Adelaide Ferreira's quintas, and she had a good eye for such things – she owned more land in the Douro than anyone else, and always built good houses in her quintas, too. Until 1994 the grapes were sold to Ferreira, and went into its wines, including Barca Velha; now they go into the quinta's own wines. This Tinto is a blend of Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, Barocca and Tinto Cão, and it's definitely a hot-climate wine; there are faint notes of creamy prunes – prune mousse? – on the palate, along with floral flavours, cistus, roses. It's supple, silky, with very well handled tannins that are so tucked in, they show only as a pleasing edge of grip. There's plenty of freshness to balance the breadth and soft fruit. A delight with food.

Quinta do infantado The Portuguese royal family established this quinta in 1816, mostly so that they could collect taxes in the form of grapes and wine. You knew it wouldn't have been altruistic, didn't you? It's near Pinhão, with excellent Port vineyards. But this table wine is made from old field blends at higher altitudes – at 280, 300 and 350m. So there's plenty of freshness. The grapes are trodden by foot in lagares, and aged in steel and oak. The result is tannic, brisk, with lovely balance, juicy black fruit, all sloes and damsons, and just a touch of rusticity to liven things up. It's very appetising.

The British contingent

Quinta do Ataíde Vinha de Arco Touriga Nacional Symington Family Estates own Port houses Dow's, Graham's, Warre's and Cockburn's, and have vast vineyard holdings in the Douro, with huge reserves of knowledge of vines and terroir. Choosing just one of their wines is rather difficult because they're all so good, at all levels.

Ataíde is in the Vilariça Valley in the Douro Superior, where the land is gently undulating and the soil is schist mixed with alluvial clay. The standard wine from Ataíde is a blend, but this Vinha de Arco is Touriga Nacional, and has a beautiful nose of rock roses, and a palate of black fruit and undergrowth, violets, fennel and wild herbs, good tannic grip and underlying tautness. It's terrific. How will it age? This is only the second vintage, so they say honestly that they don't know. It's extremely good right now.

Quinta do Vesuvio Another Symington wine, from yet another ex-Doña Antonia quinta. It's a powerful wine full of licorice, herbs and spice, damsons and violets, silky and concentrated, very ripe and deep. It's sensational.

White

Tiara Branco, Niepoort This is the only white I'm recommending, which might seem a bit unbalanced, but most of them just don't inspire the way the reds do. But everything Dirk Niepoort does is going to be interesting, at least. The vines (it's an old field blend, and mainly Códega do Larinho, Rabigato, Donzelinho and Cercial) are grown at high altitude, about 600-800m up, and they're fermented very slowly with indigenous yeasts. It's a wine with some weight and a lot of elegance, and flavours of herbs, lemon pith, honeysuckle, hay and honey; the acidity is on the low side but it's still very fresh. It also ages extremely well.