Quinta da Cancela

A seductive mix of a carefully restored 300-year-old wine property and charming owners who love to cook Portuguese dishes for their guests. It’s a pretty view from the traditional, geranium-festooned granite building with its old wine press – from the terrace you see only immaculate lawns, vineyards and fruit trees with a distant backdrop of green hills. Things are very much run along family-friendly and sustainable lines; half the food served is from within 5 kilometers, few chemicals are used and the amazing granite swimming pool is fed by a flow of crystal clear well water. Indoors is fascinating too, with a vast, first floor dining room brimming with antiques, terracotta tiled floors downstairs, granite slabs for walls and doors straight out. There’s even a guest kitchen, if you need it. In the library you can browse the National Geographics and play billiards. Smart bedrooms mostly have four-posters, two are more contemporary; some of the good bathrooms are ingeniously slotted in. Of course you can have a wine-tasting, go riding or biking, visit nearby Guimaraes and the prehistoric site of Citania Briteiros.