A port (or two) in Porto
‘H i, I’m Buff.’ I looked up to see an extended hand attached to a portly mid dle-aged body clothed in a Polo shirt; the epithet did not seem to be justified. Behind the man, a glug of other wine bores — all wearing blue blazers with brass buttons — were snuffling their way through impressive quantities of port, braying gently as they did so. Buff’s American drawl seemed out of place, since the party was from Brooks’s club and they were doing the rounds of the wine quintas. And this was Malvedos, one of the most blessed places on earth, a house which — fortunately for me — belongs to my sweet and generous friends, Rupert and Anne Symington.
Buff shimmied off in the end, as did the other Henrys and Berties whom Rupert and Anne had to entertain for a day or two. Coming from Portugal’s largest port-growing family may have its chores but the recompenses are considerable. The Douro region in northern Portugal, where port is made, is one of Europe’s most beautiful and extraordinary. The landscape is majestic, with huge hills caressing the impressive sweep of the river ‘of gold’, whose name, unlike Buff’s, is well deserved. Seen from a height, as it so often is, the water flows in such a way that when it catches the warm southern European light it glitters seductively as if covered in a milliard golden leaves. The Brooks’s crowd were but the extreme expression of a general truth: when you visit the Douro, you enter a strange parallel universe. Because many of Portugal’s port growers are English families who have been there for generations, the habits and manners of Kensington and the smarter Home Counties have been transferred en bloc to this land of surreal beauty. The English port growers boast that their lifestyle is the last remnant of the Raj, and it is indeed rather odd to be in poor Portuguese villages where everyone is called Johnnie or Amanda and speaks in loud voices. At the wine growers’ weekly lunch at the ‘Factory House’ in Porto, that day’s copy of the Times is on display — from 100 years ago — and when you get up into the Douro valley where the wine is grown, the terrific bark of mastiffs under the lunch table is matched only by the even more ferocious snarl of reproach from their corduroyed English owners.
The train journey into this enchanted world is fabulous. Porto itself is a slightly depressing place; though it straddles the mouth of the Douro quite dramatically, with the port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia on the left bank, the city is a tad grimy and seems to be full of dumpy middle-aged men wearing sleeveless sweaters and frowns. But the charming São Bento (St Benedict) station has enormous murals in azulejo tiles depicting great episodes from Portuguese history, and it is here that, a freshly made salami sandwich in hand, you clamber aboard the 1950s trains with their leatherette seats and chrome luggage racks to set off on the three-hour ride.
During the 20 years I have been visiting the Douro, Rupert’s instructions have always been the same: ‘Buy a first-class ticket and sit on the right.’ Since the ticket costs £5 and the train is generally empty, these orders are easy to obey. The tracks lead out of the station immediately into a long tunnel, and although the train then trundles through ugly suburbs and eucalyptus forests, the journey becomes spectacular once you reach Regua. You turn a corner and the view opens dramatically; you suddenly realise that you are only a few feet above the water, and the broad river sparkles beside you as the hills rise grandly on either side. Their enormous contours are etched with hundreds of miles of stone terraces, and it is on these that the vines and olive trees grow — although it is a miracle that anything can draw nourishment out of ground which seems to consist of nothing but brown flinty rocks.
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