Northern Portugal Winery visits?

I'm going to be spending a couple weeks in Portugal at the start of October and would wecome any tips on winery visits north of Lisbon. Of course one finds quite a bit on visiting the Port lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia and up the Douro; I'd love to hear your personal tales about the ones to see (or avoid). But there is very little info (at least in English) about visiting producers in Dao, Bairrada or the Minho, so any tips for these regions would be great.

I'd be particularly interested in places where the focus is on the native Portuguese varieites and the production methods tend towards the artisianal. Also, I want to keep my plans flexible, so tasting where advance arrangement is not needed would be a plus.

Sorry I can't give you any personal information on this, however I can highly recommend the book written by Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter on wine travel in Portugal. If you can obtain a copy in time, it should answer all your questions.

http://www.innhousepublishing.com/books.html

Hope this helps. The Catavino blog might also turn up something useful.

Thanks, Wink. I'll see if I can get a copy. I've scoured the shelves of bookshops here in the US and it appears no publisher is interested in putting out anything on Portuguese wine. Too many useless wine books in general, really. I have come across Catavino. I'll probably e-mail a few producers who have made interesting wines and see if I get a response. I am also interested in doing some road cycling in the north and am finding it equally hard to garner info on good routes, renting bikes, etc.

I'm going to be spending a couple weeks in Portugal at the start of October and would wecome any tips on winery visits north of Lisbon. Of course one finds quite a bit on visiting the Port lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia and up the Douro; I'd love to hear your personal tales about the ones to see (or avoid). But there is very little info (at least in English) about visiting producers in Dao, Bairrada or the Minho, so any tips for these regions would be great.

I'd be particularly interested in places where the focus is on the native Portuguese varieites and the production methods tend towards the artisianal. Also, I want to keep my plans flexible, so tasting where advance arrangement is not needed would be a plus.

Joe, go to fortheloveof port .com. Easy to register and lots of info for sure!!

http://www.fortheloveofport.com/

Bob: thanks for the link to the port site. I've come across it before and it looks like a good resource. The McWhirter and Metcalf book is a tremendous reference (thanks again Wink)for a wine and food lover visiting Portugal and I've been pouring over it for the last few weeks. So far I'll be staying at Quinta de Macedos in the Douro for a few days: they make some interesting table wines using organic viticulture and traditional methods. I'll use that as a base to visit some Port producers as well.