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| Quinta dos Tres Rios, Our Homebase in Portugal |
I’ve mistakenly defined Portuguese “quintas” (pronounced KEEN-tuh) as B&B’s, but they’re a bit more than that. A Bed and Breakfast, simply put, is a lodging option where you pay for a room and receive breakfast the next morning. As that definition also fits Holiday Inn Expresses and Fairfield Inns, we tend to extend the definition to mean a privately owned business, often where the owners also live. Staying at a B&B sometimes feels like–if it’s not actually the case–staying in someone’s home: they are your host, and you are their guest.
The nuance of a quinta comes out not long after your stay begins. Not only is it the lodge/home of the resident owners, but it’s also a working farm. In Portugal, a casa would be the equivalent of a B&B to us. It’s the working farm that makes the difference between a casa and a quinta, and it’s quite the difference.
While there’s plenty of agriculture going on at our particular quinta, the real working farm aspect of Quinta dos Tres Rios is in owner Hugh’s wine production. We blogged a couple of days ago about discovering the Touriga Nacional grape, but Hugh also grows Jaen and Tinto Roriz and Alfrocheiro, three more wine grapes indigenous to Portugal. At between 5,000 and 6,000 bottles per year, his operation is a small one, supplying his lucky guests with plenty of oak-aged deliciousness every evening and giving him some bottles to sell at the local markets. Such local village wine artisanship has gone on for centuries around here.
In addition to his Touriga red, Hugh makes a blend or two and his delicious Port (while it’s made with the same grapes, in nearly the same geography, and produced with the same techniques, technically it can’t be sold as Port since it’s not made in the adjacent Duoro valley). He relies on the trained palate of a trusted local wine making colleague for advice and recommendations on his specific blends, which can (and will) vary from season to season. But probably the best feedback he gets on his wine is when he walks around the local village of Parada de Gonta with a bottle or two, pouring tastes for locals and asking them what they think. I imagine it also makes him quite the popular quinta owner.
When you go to a restaurant, you should always pick the dish they specialize in. Should you pay a visit to Portugal, you should indulge in the quinta experience, and when you do, indulge in whatever their specialty crop, produce, or product might be. We’re quite lucky in that the quinta we picked produces wine, something very dear to us.
I wonder if our experience would have been as good had we stayed on a cauliflower-producing quinta?
