Do you remember that one episode of “I Love Lucy” where Lucy is stomping grapes in a huge wooden vat (and then gets into a fight with an Italian lady)? I still remember the first time I saw that episode as a kid (thanks, Nick and Nite and my grandma who let us watch cable TV at her house!). Something about it made enough of an impression for me to put “stomp grapes to make wine” on my travel bucket list, not knowing it was an activity the average person could actually do.

But guess what? There are absolutely still places in the world where they stomp grapes with their bare feet – and yes, even places where tourists can pitch in to help!

One of these places is the Douro Valley, a famous wine-producing region in northern Portugal where many winemakers still do things the manual way – right down to how they press their grapes.

I booked a tour to help out with the wine harvest process at a Douro Valley winery last fall, and I want to tell you all about it!

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What is the Douro Valley?

First things first: what and where is the Douro Valley? The Douro Valley is located in northern Portugal, where the Douro River has carved out a deep valley with steep rolling hills. On these steep hills, terraced vineyards make up one of the oldest demarcated wine regions in the entire world.

The Douro Valley is where the world's port wine comes from. It’s like the Champagne region in France; under Protected Designation of Origin laws in the European Union, only fortified wine made with grapes from the Douro wine region can officially be called Port or Porto.

They've been making wine here for a long, long time – roughly 2,000 years, to be exact. And many winemakers still do things the traditional way, from hand-picking all the grapes to hand-stomping (er… foot-stomping?) them. Some of this is out of necessity (for example, the steep vineyard terraces make it difficult to use machinery to pick the small grapes), while some of it is because it's just regarded as the best way to do things.

Stomping grapes in the Douro Valley

Many winemakers in the Douro Valley still press grapes for red wine the “Old World” way: with their bare feet!

This happens during the harvest season (usually mid-September through mid-October, though the exact dates change year to year). The freshly-plucked bunches of grapes are put into a large cement/stone trough (known as a lagar), and then stompers/treaders go in, barefoot, to crush the grapes.

There's science behind this: manually stomping the grapes is the best way to make sure the grape juice is expelled without also crushing the grape seeds and stems (which release more bitter flavors). Human feet also add some heat into the process, kickstarting fermentation while allowing for optimum contact between the skins and juice, which some say leads to better red wines.

It's certainly more of a time commitment, as treaders walk in a line back and forth through the lagar for hours on end before the process is complete – which is why not every Douro Valley winery uses this method.

Of the wineries that still utilize grape stomping in their winemaking process, several offer tourists the chance to get involved behind the scenes. So of course I had to try it!

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A Douro Valley harvest tour: My experience

When Elliot and I were planning our annual birthday-anniversary trip last year, I suggested we go to Portugal. I wanted to go to the Azores islands, and Elliot requested we also add some time in Porto so he could drink port wine from the source. During my planning research, I realized our trip would coincide with the harvest season in the Douro Valley, so we decided to add on two nights there, too.

There are several wineries that offer hands-on harvest season tours that include grape stomping, but they're not all easy to find in my experience.

A couple options I found include:

• This tour by Portugal Farm Experiences (wine tasting, grape stomping, and dinner included)
• This harvest tour by Living Tours (grape cutting, wine tasting, stomping, and lunch included)
• This harvest tour on Viator (full day tour with pickup in Porto included)
• The Harvest Day Experience tour at Quinta da Pacheca (two meals, wine tasting, and stomping included)

You usually can't start booking these tours until mid-summer, when the wineries will have a better idea of when the harvest will take place. Most wineries harvest all their grapes for the year within a period of 2-3 weeks, sometime between September and October. So you obviously can't book a tour outside of those weeks!

We ended up booking this tour with Living Tours, which included a half-day of harvest activities. They also offered a wider availability calendar, as I think they work with more than one vineyard for these tours.

Harvesting grapes

Since we rented a car in Porto for our time in the Douro Valley, we met the tour at the designated winery, which for us was Quinta da Avessada. (The company also offers transfers from Pinhão.) We met there at 10:30 a.m., and were eventually introduced to our guide for the morning and given our first refreshing glass of Douro wine.

Then we all donned straw hats and headed into the vineyard for about 45 minutes of grape-cutting.

We were given some shears, a small bucket, and a few tips, and then were let loose into the vines. We were actually in the Douro during some really bad wildfires, so I was extra glad that the vineyard we went to wasn't on a steep hill!

We cut grapes for less than an hour, filling several huge buckets as a group (and eating plenty along the way, too). It was hot and sweaty work, though, and I think we all finished with a greater appreciation for the people who do this for hours a day during the harvest.

We then went back to the winery for another glass of wine and a short break. And then the real highlight began!

Stomping grapes

We were taken into a large barn next where a lagar was already filled with partially crushed red grapes. Some other tours mention providing you with shorts to wear to tread the grapes, but everyone in my group just hiked up their shorts or pants and climbed into the lagar.

Our guide explained the traditional way of treading grapes – hooking elbows in a line and walking slowly through the grapes to the beat of music being played. We tried it – for all of 30 seconds before things devolved into people high-stepping and twirling around in the grape goo to the sound of live accordion music being played for us.

Grape stomping in practice is… squishy. And messy! But it was also pretty fun.

We were only in the lagar for maybe 10 minutes before our guide was ushering us out to dry off our legs. I could have happily spent longer doing this, but I can definitely check “stomping grapes to make wine” off my bucket list.

(And to anyone feeling repulsed at the idea of bare feet in the grapes that make your wine… don't stress. This all happens before the fermentation process, and that process kills off anything gross that might be floating around in there with all the grape skins, leaves, stems, seeds, bugs, etc.)

After stomping, we learned a bit about the history of the winery we were at (over yet another glass of wine, of course!), and then moved back into the main building for a traditional lunch.

The winery we visited hosts lots of tour groups, so the lunch felt like any other winery lunch I'd been to. But the overall harvest tour was really fun!

The verdict

These harvest tours can differ depending on which one you book and which winery you go to. But, in general, they are a unique way to experience winemaking in the Douro Valley, and I'm really glad we did it!

It's very easy to add a harvest tour to a larger trip to the Douro Valley or Portugal, too, so I'd say go for it if you're visiting at the right time of year.

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Where to stay in the Douro Valley

While you CAN take a day trip to the Douro Valley (even for a tour like this), I do recommend staying for a night or two if possible! For harvest season, many of the tours happen in the vicinity of Peso da Régua, which is an excellent part of the Douro Valley to base yourself.

We stayed at Casa do Romezal, a family-run guesthouse with incredible vineyard views (and they make their own wine, too). We didn't get to enjoy the outdoor areas as much as we had hoped because of the wildfires in the Douro at the time, but I would still highly recommend this spot.

And Peso da Régua is also a surprisingly great spot for foodies! A couple places I'd recommend for dinner include Tasca da Quinta, O Maleiro, and Aneto & Table. You can try local food (and wine, of course) and all of these spots.

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Would you want to pick and stomp grapes in the Douro Valley?