All About Port

PORTO is a fortified wine made from upper Douro River Valley grapes.  Douro Valley soil and climate are ideal for cultivating port.   Adding a small amount of neutral grape-spirit brandy to fermenting grapes stops fermentation and results in a rich, naturally sweet wine of about 20% alcohol.   Forty-eight grape varieties are authorized for port: Five are classic: Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Cão and Tinta Barrocca.

• Vintage or Undeclared Vintage: A vintage port is declared by the port firm 2½ years after the harvest. This allows time to assess the wine’s potential to become the highest quality of port, then called Vintage Port.
• Vintage Character Port is a superior non-vintage Ruby Porto, richer than basic ruby due to the addition of some vintage-caliber wine to the blend. Also know as reserve port.
• Ruby Porto is the mainstay of the port trade, representative of the original port. Ruby is young, fruity port generally grown in the west end of the Douro where rainfall is plentiful and production bountiful. It is usually aged no more than three years and should be consumed when quite young, for the essence of its charm.
• Tawny Porto, first produced late 1800s, gets its paler color by separating the fermenting must from the grape skins at an earlier stage than ruby. Tawny is blended to accentuate the mellow berry and nut flavors found in port wines. It is without age indication, generally from the western Douro, and although it is less intensely colored than Ruby Porto, it is rarely more than three years old. Its lightness and elegance come from less color extraction (shorter skin/juice contact during fermentation), or by blending in a certain amount of white port.
• Late Bottled Vintage (LBV): Like Vintage Port, LBV is a wine of a single year but it is not a declared Vintage Port. Whereas Vintage Port spends only two years in cask and then matures in the bottle, LBV is aged solely in cask and then bottled after four and six years. At the time of bottling, it has completed its maturation and is ready for drinking without need for decanting.
• Special Tawnies: While many Portos are blends of several years and do not bear a date, there is a special category, that indicates an average age. These are the prestigious Tawnies with average age of 10, 20, 30 and 40 years. The front label must state the age of the wine, an indication that it was aged in cask, while the year of bottling must be stated on either the front or back label. They are monitored carefully as they age in wood.
• Vintage Port is the king of Ports, declared only in years of outstanding quality, perhaps three times a decade. Eighteen months after the harvest, the best casks of wine from the best Quintas in the Alto Douro are combined into a perfectly harmonious blend. The young wine is bottled after two years of cask aging and left to slowly mature in bottle, changing over the years. At bottling, the Port is purple, fruity and luscious. As it mellows and softens over the years, the intricate maze of subtle tastes assert themselves. Vintage Port throws a substantial sediment or "crust" in the bottle and therefore requires decanting before being served. Declared vintages differ among the fine port Houses and some are 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1991, 1994 and 1997.

Recently tasted and enjoyed ports include: RAMOS PINTO, MARTINEZ, COCKBURN'S, DOW'S,  NOVAL, W & J GRAHAM'S, SANDEMAN.