Port is an iconic wine with a storied history and tradition that we found out is alive and well today. So what exactly is “Port” wine? Port wine is what is know as a “fortified” wine in which the fermentation process is stopped short with the addition of neutral “grape spirits” to raise the alcohol level to a point that kills the yeast and leaving much of the residual sugar of the grapes unfermented. The wine is then aged in a cellar, also known as a lodge or cave, for 4 to 40 years depending on the style and quality of the wine after which it is blended and bottled for sale. The result is a sweet, high alcohol wine that carries with it the traits of the aging and blending process which can add minimal to substantial flavors and colors to the wine.
There are many types of port produced that vary depending on the quality of the vintage, the aging process used, the types of grapes, etc. A brief summary of these is as follows:
- Ruby Port – This young wine is aged, but only for about three years. The cask used to age the wine are very large so as to minimize the contact with the oak. This has the effect of retaining more of the wine’s natural color, and the sweet, fruity characteristics. It’s one of the least expensive Ports on the market — and one of the most popular.
- Vintage Port – On the other end of the spectrum, vintage Port is the highest quality Port available. It’s created from a single year’s blended harvest across a number of vineyards (or Quintas) and aged 20 years or more. It’s often placed in oak casks for six months and then transferred to bottles. When a Vintage Port is produced by a single Quinta, it’s called a Single Quinta Vintage Port.
- Late Bottled Vintage – Sometimes confused with Vintage Port, a Late Bottled Vintage designation (LBV) means that a Port was made from grapes grown in a specific year, but the resulting wine was aged in oak for four to six years and then bottled and marketed.
- Vintage Character Port – This cross is a Port made from multiple vintages (blends from more than one year) but designed to taste like a single vintage variety.
- Tawny Port – Tawnies are aged normally between 10 and 20 years but sometimes as long as 30 or even 40 years. Small oak casks are used to maximize its contact with the oak producing its light or reddish brown color. Grapes are gathered from multiple vintages. When fully matured, its flavors are less sweet, but will have deeper, more complex, characteristics from the oak and the aging process. A tawny Port produced from a single vintage is called a Colheita Port.
- White Port – Gold in color, white Port is made from white grapes, not red. It tends to be less sweet than a typical Port, too. Most port houses we visited recommended using white port as a mixer for a refreshing cocktail on hot days as follows: 50ml of s dry white Port, 100ml of tonic water, orange peel and a sprig of mint to garnish. Pour all into a glass with ice cubes and stir well.
In terms of the grapes used, the major red varieties are Touriga Nacional, Mourisco, Mourisco de Semente, Tinta Roriza, Tinta Cão, and Tinta Francisco, Tinta Barroca (Mateus et al., 2002). A small amount of white Port is also produced. Codega, Malvasia, and Rabigato are the preferred white varieties.
In terms of the history, Portugal has been making wine for thousands of years and records show wine first became an important export in 1174 when the Kingdom of Portugal broke away from the Spanish kingdoms to the east. In 1386 a treaty was signed between Portugal and England to form a political and commercial alliance which was built upon through the second half of the 15th century when records show a large amount of Portuguese wine was shipped to England often in exchange for salt cod, known as ‘bacalhau’. However, it wasn’t until two centuries later, in 1678 precisely, that the first records show this Portuguese wine being referred to as ‘Port’.
As the English/Portuguese wine trade flourished, the English consumers were growing an appetite for finer wines so merchants embarked on a quest to find ever better growing regions by travelling inland on the Douro River. What they found was the upper Douro Valley which was determined to have the perfect growing conditions for quality port grapes.
So why the Douro Valley? Well the area has the unique combination of being sheltered from the coastal influence by western mountain ranges producing a very dry/hot climate in combination with very poor soils heavily stratified with the metamorphic rock knows as schist. Although somewhat counter intuitive, the hot/dry weather is needed to stress the vines resulting in longer roots, less leaves, and smaller grapes; however, the grapes that are produced have highly concentrated flavors and sugars. Additionally, the schist has multiple benefits of being soft enough for roots to penetrate, as its holds water between its layers that is slowly released to the vines, and it retains the heat of the day which radiates under the plants at night thereby protecting the fruit from what can be very cold ambient air temperatures, as well as, allowing the fruit to continue to ripen for longer periods of the day.
While the Douro Valley was perfect for all these reasons, there was one major problem…it was located hundreds of miles away from the existing commercial hub of the English merchants. The solution was to carry the wine down the Douro River to Oporto, the city right by the Atlantic Ocean where it was loaded onto ships travelling to England. As such, the wine became known as ‘Oporto wine’ or ‘Port’ as we know it today.
Interestingly, it wasn’t the local Portuguese who initially recognized the commercial value of the port wine trade, but rather, it was Englishmen and Scots who founded many of the first iconic brands such as Taylor’s, Graham’s, and Cockburn, etc. ( I know what you were thinking but the “ck” is silent and its pronounced “Co burn”, c’mon.)
Following the history, in 1756 (nearly a century before Bordeaux) the Marquis de Pombal, Portugal’s prime minister, took strict measures to demarcate the Port vineyards in the Douro Valley according to their quality. From that point on, only true “port wine” came from this region, following specific regulations of production. No drink is allowed to be called port unless it is made in this region.
The idea of a demarcated region for Port was first raised in 1755 after Port shipments had dramatically declined due to poor quality. The chief winegrowers in the region met to discuss ways of controlling both the quality and quantity of Port. The result of these deliberations was the formation of a demarcated region and the establishment of a controlling company Companhia Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro. This company imposed quantity limits on producers and purchased Port at fixed prices depending on the quality. Large fines were imposed on farmers who were caught trying to bring grapes into the region. Over a period of four years, solid granite pillars, the Marcos de Feitoria, were erected to define the boundaries of the region.
Next, came the period for setting the fortification standards. By 1850, most Port wine was fortified with brandy during the fermentation stage. Not all merchants encouraged this practice to start with, but the consumers were in favor of the sweeter, more alcoholic wines that were capable of ageing so the practice stuck, although now its is fortified with neutral grape spirits instead of brandy in order to retain the flavor of the port grapes. The production of Port is now overseen by the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (IVDP) a regulatory body set up in 2003. The organization supervises the promotion, production, and trade of all Porto and Douro DOC wines, and also guarantees label integrity, age designations, and samples all appellation wines for authenticity.
One of the last steps in the modernization of Port was the transportation move from river to land. For centuries Port wine experienced the romanticized journey on the Douro river to the lodges of the shippers in Oporto via sail boats called Barcos Rabelos. The last documented journey of Port in a Barcos Rabelos was in 1964 after which land transport took over exclusively.
As discussed in a previous post, the city of Porto is situated on the north shore of the Douro river, but all of the Port Houses’ cellars are located on the south side of the river in the area known as Vila Nova de Gaia. The reasoning for locating the cellars on the south shore is because, unlike the Porto that has a southerly exposure to the sun creating warmth, the south shore faces north with hills to the south resulting in minimal sun exposure and cooler temperatures for the port aging cellars. As you walk through the cellars the temperature is naturally 15 to 20 degrees cooler than outdoor temperatures and considerably cooler than the temperatures in Porto which recieves full sun the entire day.
Finally….our sampling of this unique wine. We were lucky to be able to visit 4 port cellars and take a tour and sample some of their wines. Speaking for myself, I did not know there was more than one type of port. I thought port was port…the tawny, oakey, nutty, dried fruit flavor. I was shocked and delighted at the same time to learn that I was going to try several different types of port. They are all so different with their own unique flavors and very tasty. We both learned a lot about history, viticulture and the production of port. The tours at each cellar were pretty much the same, but at each cellar we saw and learned something new…one more port-production-tidbit. It was also nice to be able to have the time and not hit all of the cellars on one or two days. We hit a new one every couple of days and the pace was perfect.
Our first tour was to Graham’s cellars. The cellars are beautiful with lovely terraces and views over Gaia, Porto and the Douro River. The Graham Brothers founded their firm in Porto to trade in textiles. In 1820, they accepted twenty-seven barrels of Port as payment of a debt. This sparked an interest in port wine and the two brothers decided to devote their energies to making the best Port wines from the Douro Valley: and so the Graham’s Port house was born. The cellars are now owned and run by the Symington family, who own several cellars in Gaia. Symington was a partner of the Graham brothers in the companies early days of port production. Our tour guide led us through the cellars while explaining the history and production of port. We finished in the tasting room with our guide explaining the tastings that we chose. We tasted some ruby ports and some tawny ports and we ending up buying a ruby port called Six Grapes that I liked a lot. This port was a favorite of Winston Churchill.
The next cellar we visited was Ferreira. This 250 year old cellar is the only big house of Port Wine that has remained in Portuguese hands since its foundation. Founded in 1751, the brand’s history is intertwined with the history of the evolution of the Douro Region. Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira contributed significantly to the consolidation of the brand, taking over the business at 33, she strengthened and expanded it thanks to her entrepreneurial spirit and charisma. These ports were good as well and we were able to try a white port, which was interesting. We did not a buy a bottle at Ferreira though… One can only drink so much port.
The last port house that we toured in Gaia was Cockburn. The Cockburn’s Port Lodge holds the largest quantity of Port in oak barrels and wooden vats of any cellar in Vila Nova de Gaia. These cellars are also now owned by the Symington Family. This tour was interesting in that there was a room off the cellars called the cooperage that had coopers working inside making the wine barrels. There are only a handful of cooperages left in Portugal now and not many new coopers are presently being trained. It takes many years to learn the trade. It was interesting to watch them work. Since we are getting sophisticated with our port knowledge and palate…haha… we went for the premium port tasting. We were special apparently because after the tour, they brought us upstairs to a very special tasting lounge instead of sitting on picnic tables downstairs with the peons and riffraff.
Each of the Port House tours provided a little different information about their history, the port making process, Villa Nova de Gaia, as well as, the Douro Valley; however, after three tours we understood it all pretty well so we really did not plan on taking any more tours. However, as were leaving Porto to head back to Spain, we decided to drive all through the Douro Valley to see it for ourselves and make a full day of it. As we were driving along the Douro River we came around a turn and saw a small brown sign with a yellow arrow pointing up a steep road that said “Sandeman Vinyards”. While we were short on time given the long travel day ahead, we decided to turn around and see where the road led. Our hopes were maybe we could just have a quick tasting before moving on since we had not been to this house before and we knew they were one of the few with 40 year old port. However….this story will have to wait until our next post as its part of our travel day to Salamanca, Spain.
After our time at the cellars, in the Douro Valley and tasting different ports, we have a great appreciation of the art of port wine production and the finished product. If you haven’t tasted port, give it a try…