Now Booking The Yeatman, Portugal

The indoor pool at the Yeatman Hotel overlooks Porto, Portugal, from across the river.

The bed frame in the Yeatman Hotel’s Fladgate master suite was repurposed from a giant wine barrel.

Proud residents of Porto, Portugal, will tell you that the only good thing about Vila Nova de Gaia, the town across the Douro River, is its view of Porto. That’s not inaccurate — it’s just half the story. For port wine lovers, the south-bank town is a sacred place of oak-barreled Burgundy aging to perfection in a cobblestone warren on wobbly, centuries-old port lodges. Above them sits the new Yeatman Hotel, an 82-room resort and spa that takes the idea of a wine hotel (see also the Hotel Marques de Riscal) to new heights. Certainly it’s easy to get that impression after a visit to the hotel’s cork and wine museum or after a stay in suites sponsored and decorated by various Portuguese wineries. The Fladgate master suite ($430 per night) features a 50,000-liter port barrel repurposed as a king-size bed.

The hotel spa is a labyrinth of roman baths, steam showers, marble hammams and treatment rooms offering therapies like Merlot body wraps and Caudalie Vinothérapie facials, and the quirky outdoor pool is in the shape of (what else?) a port wine bottle. This may all seem like gimmickry, but considering the renewed interest in port these days — port-based cocktails, like the Porto Brano Doce, a kind of caipirinha made with white port in place of cachaça, are popping up on bar menus all over the city — the Yeatman is making a smart bet on Vila Nova de Gaia. The hotel is a stone’s throw from the area’s top port houses, including Taylor’s, Cockburn’s and Croft (whose new pink port is popularly served over ice with lemon and soda). And it really does have stellar views.