By CINDA CHAVICH

(PINHAO, PORTUGAL) - It is the terroir of the magnificent Douro Valley that will be forever etched in my mind.

The sharp, rocky soils, the unforgiving summer heat, the nearly vertical slopes carved out of solid granite by the natural force of a mighty river, then sculpted by the hand of man into steep terraces, just wide enough to sustain a row or two of vines.

It’s a surreal landscape. Row upon horizontal row of vines encircle every slope - as if the mountains have been swathed in thick, green chenille blankets - creating grapes that embody the rich intensity of this place, the raw materials for the world’s finest Port wines.

These kilometres of stone terraces are evidence of centuries of human labour here, yet this interior region of northern Portugal remains sparsely populated and remote even today. The road that hugs the Douro River to our destination of tiny Pinhão is paved but still treacherous, a series of blind, hairpin turns switching back as it climbs through the monumental landscape. The famous single port estates, or quintas, scattered high in the hills announce their presence with large black-and-white billboards as we climb - Quinta do Crasto, Quinta dos Malvedos, Quinta do Vallado - their vineyard boundaries punctuated by rows of dusty silver-leafed olive trees and ancient walls of stacked slate.

It’s a languid place, not exactly wild but so inhospitably hot that venturing here from the brisk ocean breezes of Oporto requires that you slow your city pace to a saunter. Even a breath of wind can create a blast furnace of heat that sears the skin and, long after the sun sets, the shards of golden schist in the vineyard are still warm under foot.

It’s hard to imagine why anyone would go to such lengths to grow crops in these torrid conditions, but this sculpted landscape dates to Roman times when cereals, almonds, oranges and olives took up most of this arid but oddly fertile land. Today it’s grapes - the unique Portuguese varietals like Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Cão - that have adapted to the Douro’s difficult climate and soils, sending their roots deep into the vertical fissures in the multi-layered rock to survive and thrive.

In the modern wine parlance of appellation controlée, the Douro Valley is ground zero, the very first wine region in the world to have a national demarcation. The Douro was first recognized as a specific growing region in 1756. Since then, it’s been known primarily for producing sweet, fortified Port - a style created in the 18th century to sell to British consumers - and, more recently, as the heart of a new wave of fine red Portuguese table wine production. With markets for Port wines originally concentrated in Britain, many expat Brits came to Oporto to make, buy and sell fortified wine. Names like Dow, Graham, Smith Woodhouse and Warre (now all part of the Symington Family of Port Companies) - or competitors like Sandeman, Forrester and Taylor - still dominate the Port business and their names are ubiquitous throughout the Douro.

These famous British merchant families were the original shippers, sending the young Port wines from the hot hills downstream to the mouth of the Douro River and Vila Nova de Gaia, the coastal community across from the historic Ribiera district of Oporto. It was in Vila Nova de Gaia that, until very recently, all of the world’s Port was aged and blended in the shippers’ warehouses, or lodges, that are still crowded into this pretty section of the city.

And while changes in the laws governing port production now allow aging the wine in the Douro Valley where it is made, lingering over dinner in the quayside restaurants of Oporto, it’s these classic old lodges, with their prominent signage, that dominate the city skyline.

In Gaia, you can taste your way through each company’s ruby, vintage and tawny ports on a walking tour of this historic neighbourhood, stopping at famous port houses like Ramos Pinto, Cockburn, Taylor and Graham. Or simply sit in a sidewalk café to enjoy a glass of crisp vinho verde with a slice of the famous air-dried Portuguese ham, a plate of feijoada (beans cooked with cured meats), warm salt cod fritters and broa, the crusty Portuguese corn bread that makes every meal here memorable.

While a flotilla of the flat-bottomed sailing boats, or rabelos, no longer carry the cargo of new wine to Gaia each winter, the shippers still hoist their huge square sails every June in the annual regatta. And a collection of these sleek, refurbished crafts can always be seen bobbing in the river, flying the company colours.

It’s a few hours east of the city that the Douro wine region begins and you can travel there by car, train or boat to taste both Port and Douro table wines at the source. Some quintas are open to visitors, with formal tasting rooms, while others will receive you by appointment for tours - ask at the lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia, or arrange visits through the small hotels around Pinhão. Some quintas even have accommodation for rent.

Our tour of the region took us to Quinta do Noval, where the historic family home is perched high on a ridge, beneath the spreading branches of a 200-year-old cedar. It’s famous pre-phylloxera “Nacional” grapes – a rare planting of ungrafted, natural vines that miraculously escaped the devasting louse -  grow on nearby terraces, and we picked our way carefully down the rough-hewn stone steps past the whitewashed walls which define each row. It gives you some idea of the back-breaking work of tending these vines in the searing summer sun and hauling baskets of ripe fruit back up the steep slopes to the winery for pressing.

There is no place for modern mechanical harvesters in this landscape, no roads for heavy trucks. But in a business where technology often trumps tradition, it’s refreshing to see how staunchly the Portuguese have clung to their old ways.

Here, as in many port houses, the newly harvested grapes are still “tread” by human feet in shallow granite or concrete lagars, large square tanks where the fruit is deposited and a dozen men march in unison to gently crush the grapes long into the night. The fall harvest season becomes a festival of dance and song, something rarely seen in the modernized world of wine.

It’s the same story at Quinta do Crasto, but here an Australian winemaker has joined a new generation of the family to produce not only Port, but the ripe and rich red new table wines that are creating excitement about this region’s wine around the world.

This recent shift away from traditional port production toward internationally acclaimed table wine production has resulted in some rapid changes in this very traditional Portugese wine region, a metaphor for the modernization happening throughout Portugal in recent years. Beyond the ancient vineyards and stone farm buildings at Noval, Crasto and other historic houses, technology is now part of the process - machines with piston-fired “feet” for mechanical treading, modern Italian presses and stainless steel fermentation tanks, as advanced as any New World winery.

Back in Oporto, where quaint, turn-of-the-century trams still clang along narrow gauge rails, past medieval cathedrals and tile-clad houses, there is new construction afoot, massive excavations and cranes amid the red-tile roofs and steep streets. A major new subway and light rail transit system promises to eliminate the city’s persistent gridlock and join the populace on both sides of the Douro with a high-speed train crossing one level of the impressive but inefficient Eiffel-inspired Dom Luis I bridge built in 1886.

Until the famous Carnation Revolution of 1974 that effectively changed the Portuguese regime from an authoritarian dictatorship to a liberal democracy, the country was insulated from the rest of the world by generations of political dictatorship. It has both suffered and benefited from its isolation.

As the Portuguese embrace globalization, like the new generation of creative Douro winemakers, they hold tightly to the kind of traditions which have kept this complex country distinct from it’s larger Spanish neighbour for centuries.

And this may be part of what makes a visit to this part of northern Portugal so refreshing. Oporto is busy, but not overtly commercial. There are shopping malls and coffee shops, but no Starbucks.

It’s a city with it’s own identity, dominated by eclectic tiled houses and gilded churches, not the neon billboards and international brands so ubiquitous in almost every other corner of the globe.

During the recent European soccer finals held across the country, Portugese patriotism emerged everywhere in Oporto, with homes, businesses and balconies draped in the red-and-green flag and families crowded around huge television screens in the streets. A day before the final match, we watched an impromptu soccer-fan frenzy erupt in the centre of the city’s Bolhão Market - a friendly but raucous exchange between a group of young Greek fans and a gaggle of elderly, flag-waving and bucket-pounding women, who emerged from behind their piles of oranges and silvery sardines to parade the country’s colours.

While the Greeks chanted “Hel-LAS, Hel-LAS”, the market ladies overwhelmed them with their chorus of “Por-TOO-gal! Por-TOO-gal!”

Five hundred years ago, when Portugese explorers like Magellan and Vasco da Gama were sailing into the unknown, such proud patriotism helped make this small maritime nation a world power. Perhaps the same pride of place can continue to keep Portugal refreshingly Old World, even as it embraces the new.

(this feature first appeared in the Globe and Mail newspaper)

©Cinda Chavich

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