Wine Tasting in Porto and Douro

I did a day trip out of Porto - a tour of 8 people and they picked you up at your accommodation and dropped you back.
https://www.oportosensationstour.com/secrets-of-douro-valley/
As I was travelling solo, I appreciated the small group. It was a full day including the 1.5 hour boat road. The wineries were great and the food amazing.

We recently took a day trip to the Douro Valley from Porto. I went back and forth about going on our own or taking one of the more affordable tours. In the end we went with Living Tours 99€ and had a great experience. Our tour stopped at the beautiful town of Amarante (home of the R-rated pastry) and visited two quintas, including lunch and a one hour river cruise.

If you’ve ever been on a winery tour anyplace, the rest are much of the same. The landscape or country may vary, but the process is pretty much the same. We skipped the tours and just did a couple tastings in Porto; Caves Cálem and Adriano Ramos Pinto.

I spent a week in Porto last October and did a small group tour of the Douro one of those days. It was good, one van with 8 tourists, all about the same age, and a great guide. We stopped in two wineries, had an excellent lunch at a place I'd never have pick out myself, and while the rest of my crew went on a 1.5 hour boat ride I walked around Melres and sat and talked football (soccer) with some locals over a beer or two. (The local beer is excellent! Try Sagres or Super Bock.) It was a very good day.

I prefer big reds in the Napa style (where I've lived) and am not a big fan of sweet wines (which is a good part of what Portugal is known for). But the tour was good as it allowed me to see the country, and left me with the following impressions:

1) Portugal is not a rich country and lacks the infrastructure to accommodate tourism at the same level as Napa, or even Paso Robles. They just don't have the roads, nor the means to build them, without incurring major changes. The river (in the Douro) was, and is, the major way to ship volumn products, and that's a major constraint. Until they do that Porto will control the wine trade, and the idea of boutique wines will be held tight by the existing houses.

2) Tourism is a huge part of the economy, and there's not much of an industrial base (around Porto, at least). The historic lifestyle, which is mostly rural based, is still preferred, and until they get a couple generations of more technically dialed in population this is going to be a drag on the economy. Still, the level of consumerism is rising, but as in semi-rural USA prices seem to be rising faster than income. Point in fact, only a few of the locals I talked to travel outside their own country on holidays, and of those who do, South America is the main location due to the lesser expense. (Speaking the language is rarely a problem, most of the Portuguese I talked to were fluent in multiple languages.)

I enjoyed my time in Portugal, and will be going back in a few weeks, this time to Setubal.

Thank you all for your valuable and insightful feedback. I think that we will chose which winerys we want to tour and either rent a car, or train, etc.
Thanks again!

We just spent a week in Porto, and like Muguet we took a Douro Valley tour with Living Tours, booked through Viator. Turned out to be a great day, with well- timed stops that included a small town, quinta tour, lunch, and boat ride. I would absolutely not want to drive those roads and was grateful for our very experienced driver!