DOURO VALLEY · DECEMBER · 1991-2020 NORMALS
December turns the Douro cool and wet. At the Vila Real station, 561.5 meters up in the wine country, the month averages a high of 50.7°F and a low of 38.5°F, with 5.62 inches of rain falling across 10.5 wet days. On December 15 the sun rises at 7:48 a.m. and sets at 5:04 p.m., for 9 hours 16 minutes of daylight.
With the leaves gone, the schist walls that hold 24,600 hectares of terrace to the hillsides are readable from the road, including the narrow socalcos built before the phylloxera of 1860, each carrying one or two rows of vines. That comes at a cost we could not price: no December opening hour and no tasting price for any quinta appears in our sources, so every estate visit needs an email or a phone call first.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · DOURO VALLEY · DECEMBER
Come for the bare terraces, the cool driving weather and the empty pull-offs, pack for 5.62 inches of rain, and confirm every estate visit before you set out.
AVG HIGH 50.7°F · 10.5 WET DAYS · 9H 16M OF DAYLIGHT ON DEC 15
Go for: terrace walls you can see from the road, quiet lanes up the Corgo and the Pinhão, and afternoons that still average 50.7°F.
Think twice before: planning a tight schedule of estate visits: we could not verify a single December opening hour, and 4.4 days of the month bring 0.39 inch of rain or more.
Climate: IPMA station 567, Vila Real, 1991-2020 · Landscape: UNESCO World Heritage Centre · full sources at the end
On this page
- December highs, lows and rain daysThe IPMA normals for Vila Real
- How cold the nights get38.5°F lows, and what to wear
- Crowds and prices in DecemberWhat we could and could not verify
- Things to do in the valley in DecemberPinhão, the Corgo and the bare terraces
- A two-day driving planTwo days between 7:48 a.m. and 5:04 p.m.
- December vs November and JanuaryHow the three months compare, in figures
- Is December a good time to go?Our verdict, and the month to switch to
One caveat travels with every figure here: the thermometer stands at Vila Real, 561.5 meters up and inside the Douro country, not on the riverbank and not on the coast. The valley floor runs warmer than the station, the high ground above it runs colder and wetter, and Porto’s coastal readings do not describe this place at all.
The Douro Valley weather in December: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | December normal (1991-2020) |
|---|---|
| Average high | 50.7°F (10.4°C) |
| Average low | 38.5°F (3.6°C) |
| Precipitation | 5.62 in |
| Days with 0.04 in or more | 10.5 |
| Days with 0.39 in or more | 4.4 |
| Daylight on Dec 15 | 9h 16m · 7:48 a.m. to 5:04 p.m. |
The normals below come from IPMA, the Portuguese institute for the sea and the atmosphere, station 567 at Vila Real, averaged over 1991 to 2020. That is a real thermometer with an address and an altitude, not a reanalysis grid cell, and the gap between the two methods usually shows up on the overnight minimum. December’s 50.7°F by day and 38.5°F by night are therefore a Douro highland reading, taken 561.5 meters above sea level.
Rain reaches the gauge on 10.5 days of an average December, roughly one day in three. Of those, 4.4 bring 0.39 inch or more, the sort of day that ends a terrace walk and sends you indoors. IPMA counts a wet day from 1 millimeter, or 0.04 inch, while American tables usually start at 0.10 inch, so the two counts are not interchangeable and the Portuguese figure looks higher for exactly the same sky.
Between the average high and the average low sits 12.2°F, a narrow gap for an inland station, and it argues for layers over one heavy coat. A wool mid-layer, a hooded rain shell and shoes with real grip cover the month. Wet schist underfoot is slick, and the drystone walls that carry the vines are uneven before the rain gets to them.
December 15 gives 9 hours 16 minutes of daylight, sunrise at 7:48 a.m. and sunset at 5:04 p.m. on mainland Portuguese winter time. Breakfast before first light, be on the terraces by ten, and treat four in the afternoon as the end of the photographic day. Dinner happens in the dark all month.
How warm is the Douro Valley in December?
The month averages a high of 50.7°F and a low of 38.5°F, a spread of 12.2°F. Against November’s 55.8°F, the afternoon loses 5.1°F. Against January’s 49.8°F, it gains less than a degree, so the valley spends December within a degree of its January setting and stays there.
At 38.5°F, the first hour outside wants a hat and gloves, especially standing still at a viewpoint above the river. By early afternoon a fleece under a shell is usually enough for walking and too much for driving with the heater on. Our packing guide has the rest of the list, rain shell included.
How often the thermometer actually reaches freezing is something we could not verify: the IPMA normals we read give monthly means, not a count of frost nights, so we publish no number, and a clear still night at 561 meters can plainly get there. We also found no water-temperature reading for the Douro, so we quote none. Where sea temperatures appear on our coastal pages they are averages of daily maxima, a little warmer than a 24-hour mean, and no such figure exists for a river valley in winter.
How busy is the Douro Valley in December? Crowds, prices and the Christmas week
December falls well outside the weeks that put this valley on every itinerary, and the picking is long over. We found no monthly occupancy series and no room-rate curve for the Douro municipalities, so we crown no month cheapest and none busiest. The calendar is all we can state: harvest belongs to another season, covered in our harvest guide.
That gap in the data changes what you reserve first. With no December opening hour verified for any quinta, the booking that matters is the visit rather than the bed. Write to two estates before you fix your dates, treat a confirmed tasting time as the anchor of each day, and ask directly about closures if your trip falls in the Christmas and New Year week.
We could not verify a lodging-tax rate for the Douro municipalities, so we give no percentage and no per-night amount. If a tax appears on your bill, it will be a municipal line, and the property can tell you the figure before you book.
The line worth paying up for is the car. With 5.62 inches of rain spread across the month, narrow lanes above the terraces and darkness at 5:04 p.m., the cheapest hire with tired tires is a poor trade, and nothing replaces your own roof when a 0.39-inch day arrives at lunchtime. Our rental guide covers tolls and insurance, and getting around Portugal covers the train alternative.
Things to do in the Douro Valley in December: Pinhão, the Corgo and the vineyard terraces
Winter shows the structure of the landscape with nothing growing over it. The Alto Douro Wine Region was inscribed by UNESCO in 2001 under criteria iii, iv and v, and in December its 24,600 hectares of terraced vineyard read as engineering: wall after wall of dry schist stepped up the slopes, with the Marão and Montemuro mountains standing between the valley and the harsh Atlantic wind.
The tributaries organize the driving. The Varosa, the Corgo, the Távora, the Torto and the Pinhão all drop into the Douro, and the quintas stand thickest in the Upper Corgo and the Upper Douro, each a main house with its winery and farm buildings around it. Smaller holdings are called casais. White-walled villages sit midway up the slopes around an 18th-century parish church, often an imposing one. We could not verify an opening hour, a ticket or a tasting price for any estate, so call each one.
The oldest terraces, the socalcos, predate the phylloxera of 1860: narrow, irregular, buttressed with schist and carrying one or two rows of vines apiece. The long, regular, slightly sloping terraces came with the replanting at the turn of the 20th century, wider and angled so the vines catch more sun, their monumental walls changing the look of the whole valley. In December both systems are legible from a single pull-off. Rain is the counterweight: torrential rain badly damaged terraces here in late January 2001, and 4.4 days of an average December bring 0.39 inch or more.
Nothing outdoors costs money this month: the river roads and their pull-offs over the Corgo, the villages and their churches, and the walled orange groves along the lower banks, where citrus grows among brushwood, scrub and coppice beside the old stone channels that once collected the water. We found no free-admission day at any museum or estate for December, so we list none.
Douro Valley in December: two-day driving itinerary via the Corgo and Pinhão
Day one runs along the river. Leave with the 7:48 a.m. sunrise, take the road east while the light is still low, and be above the mouth of the Pinhão by mid-morning. Put the confirmed tasting at 11 a.m. or noon, when the air has climbed toward its 50.7°F high, then eat late and indoors. Colors flatten well before the 5:04 p.m. sunset, so be off the high lanes by half past four.
Day two climbs instead of following: up the Corgo to Vila Real at 561 meters, where the IPMA thermometer sits and where it runs colder than the riverbank. If the sky turns, and 4.4 days a month it delivers 0.39 inch or more, swap the terrace walk for an indoor tasting arranged the day before and keep the driving for the middle hours. After heavy rain, stay off unpaved terrace tracks, since the 2001 downpours damaged walls badly enough for UNESCO to call for repair work.
Best time to visit the Douro Valley: December vs November and January
| Measure | November | December | January |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 55.8°F | 50.7°F | 49.8°F |
| Average low | 42.8°F | 38.5°F | 37.0°F |
| Precipitation | 4.83 in | 5.62 in | 5.09 in |
| Wet days, 0.04 in or more | 11.2 | 10.5 | 11.4 |
Temperature runs downhill across the three: 55.8°F, then 50.7°F, then 49.8°F by day, with nights falling from 42.8°F to 38.5°F to 37.0°F. Rain does not follow the same line. December is the wettest of the three at 5.62 inches and yet records the fewest wet days at 10.5, so its rain arrives in larger deliveries, consistent with 4.4 days at 0.39 inch or more. No heavy-day count for the neighboring months appeared in the IPMA table we read, so we compare totals only.
Moving four weeks earlier buys 5.1°F on the afternoon, 4.3°F on the night and 0.79 inch less rain, spread over 0.7 more wet days. Moving four weeks later costs another 0.9°F by day and 1.5°F by night for 0.53 inch less rain, in the month whose late-January storms once tore up the terraces. Both have their own page: November and January.
Is December a good time to visit the Douro Valley?
Yes, if you came for the landscape and the wine rather than the weather. Afternoons at 50.7°F are comfortable walking temperatures, the roads are quiet, and the terrace architecture is visible in a way it never is under a summer canopy. No, if you need long days, a guaranteed open cellar door, lunch outdoors, or a first Portuguese trip built around a beach.
If that lands as a no, November is the closer substitute than January: 55.8°F days, 42.8°F nights and 4.83 inches of rain against December’s 5.62. For the full twelve-month view of the country, our best-time page sets the seasons side by side, and Porto and the north covers the base most Douro trips start from.
December’s offer is narrow and real: bare vines, so the pre-1860 socalcos and the wide post-phylloxera terraces can both be read off one hillside without leaving the car.
The last word
Book the tastings before the room, keep the middle of the short day for the terraces, and accept that roughly one day in three will be wet. What you are driving through has been farmed for wine by traditional landholders for some 2,000 years, and Port has been a defined, regulated quality since 1756. In December the whole apparatus stands bare in front of you, inside a buffer zone of 225,400 hectares, nine times the size of the protected property and, by UNESCO’s own account, difficult to manage.
Sources & data for this guide
- December normals, high 50.7°F, low 38.5°F, 5.62 in · IPMA, station 567 Vila Real, 561.5 m, 1991-2020 · checked Sep 23, 2026
- Wet days, 10.5 at 0.04 in and 4.4 at 0.39 in, on IPMA thresholds · same station and period · checked Sep 23, 2026
- November and January normals used in the comparison · IPMA, same station and period · checked Sep 23, 2026
- Daylight of 9h 16m, sunrise 07:48 and sunset 17:04 UTC on Dec 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 23, 2026
- Inscription in 2001, 24,600 ha property, 225,400 ha buffer, socalcos, quintas, tributaries, the 2003 spatial plan, the 2006 Douro Mission and the January 2001 rain damage · UNESCO World Heritage Centre, file 1046 · checked Sep 23, 2026
- We could not verify quinta opening hours, tasting prices, boat or train fares, occupancy figures or lodging-tax rates for the valley, so none appear above · reading note, Sep 23, 2026
To plan your stay
- Things to Do in the Douro Valley: Quinta Tastings, the River Train, Boats and Miradouros
- Douro Valley vs Alentejo: Monthly Temperatures, Rain Days and Daylight
- Best Time to Visit the Douro Valley: Month-by-Month Weather, Harvest Season and the Quiet Months
- The Douro Valley in January: Weather, Rain Days and Bare Terraces