Real Companhia Velha

This guide to Real Companhia Velha in Porto opens on Ash Wednesday 1757, when soldiers crushed a Porto tavern keepers' revolt sparked by a new wine monopoly. It traces the company chartered a year earlier by the Marquis of Pombal, the stone boundary markers he had planted across the Douro hillsides, and the fury his rules provoked among local innkeepers. You'll walk cellars of oak casks resting in near-total silence, some holding tawny Port aged since 1765.