Port is a fortified wine from northern Portugal, made by adding grape brandy to the wine as it ferments. There are different types of port, including ruby, tawny, vintage, and late bottled vintage. It is a popular drink in England and France, enjoyed as an aperitif or dessert wine.
Port is a strong, usually red, fortified wine. It originates in northern Portugal, from the city of Porto in the Douro region. While true port always comes from Portugal, in recent years, the name has become a generic term for this style of fortified wine. As a result, many Portuguese producers have started to differentiate their product by labeling it Porto.
The drink is made by adding grape brandy to the wine as it ferments. This prevents the wine from fermenting further, leaving it with substantially more alcohol – and therefore with a higher sugar content, as less sugar is able to finish converting to alcohol. This practice has been around for hundreds of years, as brandy has historically been added to wines from northern Portugal to help them stay preserved during their journey to England.
Almost all ports are red, but there is a special variety of white ports that has little popularity outside Portugal. This type is made using very pale grapes. Some cheaper tawny doors fake age subtlety by adding a white door to a younger tawny.
Wooden doors are the most common type. A ruby port is young, having aged in cask but not in bottle. They are full of energy and don’t have much subtlety. A tawny port has been aged in the cask for an extended period of time – usually 10 to 40 years – and so has taken on a lighter, “tawny” colour.
A vintage barrel is aged for two years in the barrel and then left for a long time in the bottle to age. Vintage varieties aren’t produced every year – about one in three years is considered good enough for vintage – but they are vastly superior to wooden ports. The vintage often has sediment at the bottom from aging and therefore should be decanted before drinking. A good bottle shouldn’t be ready to drink for at least 10-20 years and can continue to age for much longer. Because of the time it takes to age, many parents buy a good bottle when a child is born, to be bestowed on the child on their 18th or 21st birthday – or whatever the legal drinking age is in their country.
Late bottled vintage port, or LBV, is a minor variety of vintage port. These wines are bottled between four and six years after production and can be drunk upon release, without requiring extensive aging like vintage varietals. They range from quite low quality to those approaching the quality of true vintage strains. A vintage character port is a special type of LBV that blends vintages from the best years.
Port is a perennial favorite drink around the world, particularly in England and France. Some people enjoy it as an aperitif and others prefer it as a dessert wine, but all who appreciate it hold it in a special place in their hearts.
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