Douro River Valley Tour 5: A visit to a Port wine estate — Quinta do Tedo

This is the last stop of the Douro River Valley Tour, a visit to a Port vineyard located in Armamar (Viseu district) along the Douro River and Tedo River just before reaching Pinhao. Maria told us that this estate is a very small, single Quinta A classification. Quinta in Portuguese is equivalent to an estate, hacienda or domaine.



Wine estate classifications runs from A to F with A being the highest. You can find more information here: Portuguese Quinta Classification







Quinta do Tedo on a much better weather (blue skies!) day. Picture from wiemax.com



Quinta do Tedo



From my seat in the mini bus (I was sitting in front), I could see Quinta do Tedo coming into view, the estate is perched on top of a hill and is waiting for us. Maria said the views up there are beautiful. I am sure I will not disagree. This part of the Douro River Valley is very peaceful, raw and pure. It was raining when we drove up the private road leading to the estate but when we jumped out of the mini bus, the rain drizzled down a little bit providing us the opportunity to enjoy the breath taking views while we took the obligatory pictures.



The place is soooo lovely, even on a bit gloomy and rainy day!







There are 3 dogs in the estate but this one is the sweetest. He came to greet us.









Breath taking views are they not? Even for a bit gloomy day...









The man from the winery welcomed us as we stood there in awe of our surroundings. He told us that the valley we are looking at—35 acres of vineyards including the body of water, all belong to Quinta do Tedo. There are another 22 acres of land planted with olives and fruits that belongs to the estate as well.



Then he urged us to follow him to the cave where they store and age the wines in oak barrels. The cave is located at the other side of the estate and as we rounded the corner, we were again confronted by the beautiful scenery, he had to patiently wait for everyone until we were done snapping pictures. I can probably hear him mutter under his breath, ‘Ah, tourists…’ Haha, he must be used to this.













Port Wine Cave



Mr. wine man explained to us the aging process of Port wine and all that stuff, yadda, yadda, etcetera. Anyway, there’s a ton of information about Port wine available online for those who are interested. There is google for that so I will not be posting that here. But in this winery, I learned that for Port wine to be called vintage, it must be at least 10 years old. Naturally, the value of a bottle of vintage Port follows its age.



The wine estate is actually now owned by a Frenchman coming from the Bouchard wine growing family in Burgundy, France.







Isn't she just too cute? This is the little girl of the Japanese couple living in Frankfurt, Germany.

















Here I am smiling reluctantly (disapprovingly!) at the camera because of the bad weather. Unfortunately, after our short Port cave session, it rained again. Here I am walking back to the main part of the building for the next part of the agenda which is the Port tasting.



Port Tasting – Vintage is my favourite



I really would have wanted to buy a vintage bottle of Port from this winery but I came by plane with a carry-on luggage. It is also too much of a hassle to have to ship a bottle of wine to the Netherlands but I really enjoyed their vintage here very much. So smooth and elegant.



Read here my entry about the types of Port wine and my visit to the Calem Caves in Vila Nova de Gaia: Port cave tour and tasting at Calem: You drink Port at the end of the meal!







We had a tasting of Port wines, from left to right: 10-year old Tawny, a Ruby 2007 and a Vintage .











The estate also offers Bed & Breakfast accommodation. In fact, many quintas offer this in the Douro River Valley. My wish would be that during the warmer months, I’d be able to come back here and stay in the valley for a few days.



So we have come to the end of the tour and as we drove back to Porto, my last memory of the drive and everything else were these pictures below before I dozed off.







I woked up just in time when we entered Porto. The streets seem to be dry, so I am grinning and hearing hallelujah ringing in my ears. The evening is going to be promising!



Previous entries:



Douro River Valley Tour 4b: Lunch in Peso da Regua at Restaurante Douro In

Douro River Valley Tour 4a: The flood in Peso da Regua

Douro River Valley Tour 3: Wine, Cheese and Presunto tasting in Lamego

Douro River Valley Tour 2: A rainy and misty 'Douro viewing point' stop

Douro River Valley Tour 1: Amarante village, Vinho Verde (green wine) and some Travel Agency rant

Dutch town: Wijchen in Gelderland

Wijchen is located in the eastern part of the Netherlands in the Gelderland province, just beside the city of Nijmegen and very close to the German border.



Wijchen Castle











‘Wijchen Castle’ circa 1392. The castle underwent major developments and annexation which led to the now castle in renaissance gothic architecture style. Kasteel van Wijchen (in Dutch) is now a museum and is partly being used by the city hall (i.e., renting out the castle rooms for events, parties, etcetera).



Wijchen Centrum









A quick peek into the town’s centre... a bit quiet for a late afternoon.



De Oude Molen (Windmill)







Windmill ‘De Oude Molen’ circa 1799. Like the castle, she also underwent several restorations.



Visit Period: March

Destination: Wijchen (Gelderland), The Netherlands

Gamble Plantation State Park

We visited this neat place last year, and enjoyed it so much. It is a antebellum mansion that sat on a sugar plantation. It is the only surviving plantation in South Florida. It is a beautiful building and it has beautiful grounds. We enjoyed our visit this year too.



You can read more about it here: Gamble Plantation

Buddy and Diane Visit Us at The Villages

We had a visit from some of our favorite people in the world: Buddy and Diane. They came during the week that Nathan and I went back down to Wauchula, but luckily they waited for us to get back for a night out with them and Rich and Donna.



We headed down to Wildwood to eat at a place that Rich and Donna had been to before, the Cotillion Southern Cafe.






We had dinner reservations at 4:30. We arrived early enough to peek at the menu that had sitting out front. It looked like a wonderful country cooking menu to me. Once we were inside I could see how unique this place really was. The decorations were so down home and relaxing, right down to our mis-matched dishes at our table. Most importantly was the food there. It was very good! We ordered a variety of dishes and we all agreed that our food was wonderful. I highly recommend this place to anyone in the area.






We enjoyed our night of fun, food and most important of all: Friends!

Ice climbing techniques?

In many ways things have changed little in the skills required to climb steep ice for the last 33 years or more.



Will Gadd recently published a timely commentary on his blog that is worth a read.

http://willgadd.com/x-vs-t-why-the-old-x-technique-is-inferior/



Here is a similar comment from two years ago trying to "drive home" the same point. :)



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//01/ice-climbing-skills-and-techniques.html



I added this to Will's web site to give credit where it is really do.



"Good stuff as always Will. Just one clarification I think might be due.. Your countrymen, John Lauchlan and crew at Yamnuska Mtn school were teaching the “A” technique back in the fall/winter of 1980 when I showed up there. “A” likely a better description than a “T” for body position. John’s term BTW not mine and how he taught it indoors on a chalk board and outdoors on the ice. My take at the time was John and Dwayne adopted the same technique early and just furthered the idea in their season in the alps. That crew, Albi Sole, Dwayne Congdon, James Blench, Gregg Cronn among others at least tried to climb with and teach the "A" technique. It was an obvious improvement over the "X". Much easier to do now, as you know, using leashless tools."



“In the summer of 1980, with Dwayne Congdon, he represented Canada at the Rassemblement International, a bi-annual event held in Chamonix, France, that attracts two of the best climbers from each country. John and Dwayne succeeded in making the third ascent of the MacIntyre/Coulton Route on the Grande Jorasses, a route that had defeated many of Europe’s top alpinists. John went on to climb the North Face of Les Droites and to solo the Gabbaroux Couloir on Mt Blanc. (among others) In Canada, ice climbing was one of John’s main interests, and he led the movement towards new routes and bolder styles. His list of first ascents includes Takakkaw Falls, Pilsner Pillar, Slipsteam and Nemesis (the first free ascent).”



"Weeping Pillar and Nemesis were done prior to ’80 and done free so I suspect they didn’t adopt much. But the “A” on perfect alpine Neve makes the technique a lot easier to adopt and then transfer that skill to steep water ice."



What follows is a sequence of photos on Grade 3 to 3+ water ice. Small bulges of almost vertical but the majority of the ice is between 65 and 75 degrees. Steep enough but also a great situation to really push your skill level in the A position and the most efficient use of a moderntool that offers two distinct grip positions. In this case, the tool used is a current model of BD Cobra but any of them (the newest 2 grip tools)will work. Big thanks to Craig Pope here formakingthis blog post possible. I've wanted to shoot and write this one up for a long time. But it has beenreally hard to get the chance, with the right weather, rightclimb and right climber with the skills worthy of the photo demo.



I have nothing to gain from this, so take it for what it is worth... If you are not climbing leashless on a modern tool designed to be leashless you are wasting energy.

I have done all this on a straight shafted bamboo axe as well. And while possible to use these skills and the technique on any tool it is not nearly as efficient, safeor as fun with out the current leashless gear.









Classic example of using the second grip on the right tool and getting full extention off both tools.

Which in turns means fewer placements and less engery wasted.














Changing grip position on the shaft after shaking out.


















Note he has gone to the upper grip on the right hand to eliminate a placement.





To pull over a small bulge his tools are closer than he would generally like. Classic way to pull over a bulge.Craigis using both tool grip positionsto good effect.









Easier ice and a BIG extension










Always take advantage of any rest, drop your arms and shake. It will keep you warmer and stronger.





Easy "holster" of a tool (thumb hook) and again, avoids a unneeded placement of your tool









Using the 2nd grip to good effect





Bottom line? The fewer times you swing on any given piece of ice the stronger you will be climbing.

Think, efficent use of the tool first, rest by getting off your arms when possible second.





Perfect place for a screw and good leverage to get it started just below chestheight







Rockin!





Lane at the belay below, from mid pitch, 100+ feet out.



Two videos linked below that hopefully will help. One of Will on picked out, cold, hard (in texture), vertical ice. More hooking than swing there to good effect. And the other from Peak Mtn Guides.



<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rjMVSlQilKk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X1AJS-hccXE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



In the second video from Peak Mtn Guides,mycritic would be that a lot of effort is wastedby not driving the tool straight above the climber but instead isshown being driven off to the side and with straight hip angles. It is more efficient to drive the tool at the apex of the triangle or top of the A, and allow your hips to follow.