The Vintage House Hotel

Pinhão is where the Douro wine country concentrates itself. The river bends, the terraced vineyards close in on both sides, and the railway station is tiled with azulejo panels showing the harvest as it was done a century ago. The Vintage House sits between the station and the water.

The building was a wine lodge, put up to store and age port before it went downriver to Gaia, and for a long time it belonged to the Taylor's family. It became a hotel in 1998, the first luxury property in the valley, and the Fladgate Partnership bought it back in 2015. Fladgate also owns Taylor's, The Yeatman in Gaia and the Infante Sagres in Porto, so the port trade has effectively reacquired its own warehouse.

There are 47 rooms and suites, and the important thing about them is that they all face south, over the garden and pool towards the river and the terraces beyond. Every one has a balcony. The decoration is country-house rather than contemporary, comfortable and unfussy, with sitting areas and desks, and the larger suites take sofa beds. Some master suites have fireplaces.

The public rooms keep the lodge's bones: rough oak beams, granite columns, vaulted ceilings in the Rabelo restaurant, and a library bar that is the best room in the building for a glass of white port before dinner. There is a wine shop and a Wine Academy running tastings and courses.

Outside there is a pool looking over the river, a tennis court and bicycles.

Getting here is part of it. The Douro line from Porto takes about two and a half hours and runs beside the water for the last stretch, and the station is directly behind the hotel. You can also arrive by boat and tie up at the pier opposite. Gustave Eiffel's iron bridge over the Pinhão river is in view.

Book direct and breakfast is included along with a food and drink credit; through third parties it usually is not.