Nelas family estate whose vines sit at an average 450 metres on granite and quartzite soils, vinified without new wood in a deliberately classical Dão style.
Tasting: Visits Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 18:00.
Adega at Quinta da Teixuga in Carvalhal Redondo, restarted by Paulo Santos in 2012 and now part of Grupo Terras e Terroir alongside Quinta da Pacheca in the Douro.
Tasting: Monday to Saturday 09:00 to 18:00, with cellar visits and three-wine tastings at 11:00, 14:30 and 16:30, vineyard walks, lunch pairings and a wine-and-chocolate tasting.
Vinhos Imperfeitos, the Nelas project Carlos Raposo founded in 2018 after training in Bordeaux and Burgundy and seven years making wine with Dirk Niepoort in the Douro.
Tasting: Tastings and cellar visits by arrangement with the producer at Nelas.
Signature wines: Vinhos Imperfeitos
Small Vilar Seco estate with 6.5 hectares of vines on a south-facing granite slope, restructured in 1999 with Dão varieties and still using its old granite lagares.
Tasting: Visits Monday to Friday 15:00 to 20:00; the estate also lets rooms and one-bedroom apartments in the nineteenth-century granite house.
Lusovini's Dão brand, first bottled from the 2000 harvest by João Paulo Gouveia, drawing on 75 hectares between Viseu, Mangualde, Nelas and Carregal do Sal.
Tasting: Wine tourism spaces at Nelas, Carregal do Sal, Oliveira de Barreiros and the Sé in Viseu, with vineyard walks, barrel-cellar visits, picnics and a harvest programme.
Signature wines: Pedra Cancela Selecção do Enólogo, Pedra Cancela Touriga Nacional
Lusovini's tasting room at the Pedra Cancela winery in Areal, pairing flights of the house range with Serra da Estrela cheese and charcuterie beside the Taberna da Adega dining room.
A family cellar inside the town of Nelas that takes booked farm and cellar visits with tastings of its Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz and Encruzado bottlings.
The dining room inside the Pedra Cancela winery at Areal, serving Dão recipes with the Lusovini range poured at set temperatures in matched glassware.
Nelas has run the region's producer fair since 1991 in the Praça do Município: four days of stands, commented tastings and the Grande Prémio Engenheiro Alberto Vilhena wine competition.
Tip: The competition is judged on the opening Thursday and the winning wines are poured on the Saturday. Commented tastings need booking and sell out first.
For World Wine Tourism Day the Nelas producers throw their cellar doors open across a weekend, with a free guided-visit programme on the Saturday afternoon alongside the walk-in Portas Abertas tastings.
Tip: The guided visits are free but have to be booked; the open cellars themselves take walk-ins across both days of the weekend.
After hotel pickup in Coimbra, we take direction to activity start in Viseu. Day dedicated to bicycle touring on an old railway branch that has 130 years of transpor...