Home / The thirty days / Porto and the Minho / A pressing day in the Vinho Verde
Granite, wet stone floors and overhead vines
Granite presses and vines trained overhead: reserve a pressing day in the Vinho Verde
From $196 per person, 09:30 to 17:00, on a smallholding in the Porto and the Minho region, inland from the coast and north of the city. This day needs four people before it runs, so a pair holds two places and waits for two more, or takes the day privately at a higher figure. Harvest decides the date, not the calendar.
| Starts from | Ponte de Lima, Portugal |
|---|---|
| Hours | 09:30 to 17:00 |
| Runs when | needs four |
| One person pays | from $196 |
| Part of | Porto and the Minho |
Picking, carrying, and the press itself
You arrive at half past nine, when the picking crew has been out for two hours and the crates are already coming in. The morning is cutting. The vines here are trained above head height on granite posts, so you work looking up, and the fruit goes onto a low trailer rather than onto your back. Lunch is at the house, long and unhurried. The afternoon is the press: the old granite one is still turned by hand for a single small lot each year, and that lot is why you are there, beam, thread and all. Everything else goes through a modern press in the next building, and you see that too, because pretending otherwise would be theatre.
Ladders, wet stone and a long day
This is the most physical of the lighter days. Cutting overhead means arms up for long stretches and a stiff neck the following morning. The ground between rows is grass and often wet even in September, and there is one short ladder for the high fruit that nobody is required to climb. The press house has a stone step down and a floor that stays slippery all day. Expect to be damp to the elbows. Closed shoes with grip, sleeves you can push up, a change of shirt in the car. Anyone with a shoulder that complains should pick rather than press, and can say so on arrival without anybody making a thing of it.
Where the $196 stops
From $196 per person, and four people are needed before the day runs. If three are held, the office says so plainly and either waits or offers the day privately at a higher figure; nobody is left guessing a week out. The figure holds transport from the city, the full working day, and lunch at the house with the family who farm the place. It does not hold accommodation. It does not hold anything bottled that you choose to take away, which is settled between you and them: this office neither supplies nor sells any drink. The holding invoices you in its own name and is not paid by this office.
Awkward things people ask about this day
- Is there a tasting at the end of the day?
- No, and nothing here is sold as a tasting. The day is a working one: you pick, you carry, you watch a press turned by hand. Lunch is a meal at a family table and what appears on it is the family's business, not a listed part of the day. This office supplies no drink and sells none. Anything you take away is settled directly with the farm.
- How firm is the date?
- It moves most years. Picking here starts anywhere from the first week of September to the first week of October, decided by sugar readings and a look at the sky rather than by a date set in June. The office holds your place on a week, then fixes the day about ten days out. If the date moves outside your stay, the day is cancelled and nothing is charged.
- We are two. Can we still come?
- Yes, on one of two terms. You can hold two places on an open week and wait for a third and fourth, which usually happens inside a fortnight in September and rarely at the very start or the very end of the season. Or you can take the day privately, which costs more because the farm loses two pickers to teach you. The office will say which is likely rather than let you hope.
The other five days near this one
Two days that look close on a map are not always joinable in one week, and the office will say so plainly instead of selling you the pair anyway.
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from $148 per person runs whatever the numbers -
from $132 per person runs whatever the numbers -
from $210 per person needs eight -
from $164 per person needs four -
from $188 per person needs eight
Hold this day and add others to it
Booking a day here means the office holds your place with whoever runs that day on the ground, and their invoice reaches you directly once the dates stop moving.