Porto's historic Port wine lodges

The fortified wine is grown up the Douro but aged here on the south bank, in long cool cellars built for the barrels rather than for visitors. Most now run scheduled tours ending in a tasting of tawny, white and vintage, with prices climbing steeply for older stock. Some houses are still under founding family control while others belong to large drinks groups.

Places in this collection

  • Fonseca — Cellars with centuries of winemaking behind them in the historic core of Gaia, opened up as a visitor centre with a tasting room and shop.…
  • Quinta dos Corvos — A small former Taylor's building, taken over in 2016 to put the Corvos name in front of visitors to Gaia. Nothing is produced or aged here,…
  • Niepoort — An independent family business since 1842, now in its fifth generation under Dirk Niepoort, ageing its Ports in old casks, bottles and demi…
  • Croft — Traced back to 1588, which makes it the oldest operating Port house of them all, on the street named after Baron Forrester. The visit runs…
  • Rozès — A Bordeaux merchant house from 1855 that began shipping Port under its own name in 1930, and has belonged to Vranken Pommery Monopole since…
  • Burmester — The brand dates to Henry Burmester and John Nash in London in 1750, and the original cellars here reopened in 2012 after restoration, right…
  • Offley — Founded in 1737 by William Offley and made famous under Joseph James Forrester, the first Baron Forrester, who mapped the Douro river syste…
  • Churchill's — A young house by Gaia standards, founded in 1981, at the far end of the waterfront where most visitors never walk. Tastings are put togethe…
  • Real Companhia Velha — The oldest Port company in Portugal, created in 1756 by royal charter of King José I to regulate the trade. The tasting room is furnished i…
  • Ramos Pinto — Founded in 1880, and the reason to come is less the cellar than the museum upstairs, which is given over to the company's early twentieth c…
  • Poças — Family-owned since 1918 and known for its Tawnies, with a visitor centre made out of the restored company headquarters in the old centre of…
  • Cockburn's — Founded in 1815 by a Scottish soldier who had served in the Peninsular War, and now Gaia's largest wooden Port cellar. One of the few lodge…
  • Ferreira — A house founded in 1751 and shaped by Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, the Douro matriarch her countrymen called Ferreirinha. The cellars ho…
  • Cálem — Established in 1859 and set right by the lower deck of the bridge, which is why it takes more visitors than any other lodge in Gaia. Before…
  • Sandeman — Founded in 1790, with a wide façade directly on the Gaia riverfront in a building by the architect Joaquim da Costa Lima Sampaio. The tour…
  • Graham's — Built in 1890 on a ridge a few hundred metres above the south bank, and restored by the Symington family with its original features kept. O…
  • Taylor's — The cellars sit up the hill on Rua do Choupelo rather than on the quay, holding most of the house's wood-aged reserves plus its Vintage Por…

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