Set on Avenida Diogo Leite directly on the southern riverside of the central Douro River in the historic Vila Nova de Gaia port wine production district immediately south of central Porto, the Calem Caves are one of the principal continuing port wine cellar operations of the wider Vila Nova de Gaia historic wine trade. The cellars have been the principal central production and ageing facility of the Calem port wine company continuously since the foundation of the company by Antonio Alves Calem in 1859. The Calem company was founded in 1859 by the Portuguese wine merchant Antonio Alves Calem during a period of substantial expansion of the wider Portuguese port wine trade. The original commercial focus of the company was the supply of port wine to the substantial Brazilian colonial market, with the company subsequently expanding into the principal continental European and northern European port wine markets through the following several decades. The Calem brand remains one of the principal continuing Portuguese-owned port wine companies and is currently owned by the wider Sogevinus group. The principal Vila Nova de Gaia cellar complex covers approximately ten thousand square metres of underground cellar space across several principal underground levels. The various underground galleries provide the principal ageing facilities for the substantial Calem port wine stock, with the total holdings at any given time consisting of around forty thousand individual oak barrels of port wine at various stages of the ageing process. The natural underground temperature of around fifteen degrees Celsius year-round provides the principal optimal ageing environment for the slow tawny and vintage port wine maturation processes. The Calem cellars opened to the public for guided tours in around 1992 as part of the wider commercial diversification of the Portuguese port wine industry into the principal modern tourist trade. The standard guided tour typically takes around forty-five minutes and covers the principal historic central cellar galleries, the various individual ageing stages of the principal port wine production processes and a small museum interpreting the wider history of the company and the principal Portuguese port wine trade. The tour concludes with a guided tasting of around three or four representative individual port wines from the principal current Calem commercial range. The supplementary cultural programme includes regular fado music performances in the principal subterranean tasting room. The venue hosts around three or four individual fado performances each week during the principal high tourist season between April and October, with the performances typically combining the standard guided cellar tour with a substantial fado dinner show in the principal subterranean dining room. The combined cellar tour and fado dinner package is one of the principal individual tourist experiences of the wider Vila Nova de Gaia port wine district.

Type: Activity

Address: Avenida Diogo Leite 344, Porto, Portugal

Opening Date: 01/01/1859