What is Port?

Port is a fortified wine originating from the Douro Valley in Portugal. The wine takes its name from the Atlantic coast city of Oporto at the mouth of the 560-mile long “River of Gold”.

The Romans introduced wine to the Iberian Peninsula in the first century B.C. But it wasn’t until the 17th-century that the British added brandy to the harsh red wines of the Douro to stabilize them for shipment to England. The ongoing wars in Europe affected the ability of the British to obtain their favored “clariet” wines from France so they looked to Portugal as a reliable source of drinkable red wine.

The first English port house was established in Oporto in 1670. In 1703 the British and Portuguese signed the Methuen Treaty that paved the way for the port trade that exists to this day.

While there are port-style wines made around the world from Australia to South Africa to California, strict use of the term Port is reserved for fortified wines produced in Portugal.

Port Wines

Over 500 grape varieties are grown in Portugal but only 30 different varieties are found in the Port wine region of the Douro. Of these, only five are considered to have the exceptional quality for Port wine. These varieties are Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), Tinta Barroca, Tinto Cao, and Touriga Francesa.

Much of the grape harvesting along the steep slopes of the Douro Valley is still done buy hand. Grapes were traditional trodden barefoot in open granite lagers but today most of the crush is done mechanically. The must is placed in concrete or stainless steel tanks for fermentation. When about have the grape sugar has been turned to alcohol, the juice is run off into barrels containing about brandy which stops to fermentation. The usual mix is one part brandy to four parts juice.

In the spring following harvest, the wines are moved down the Douro Valley to Vila Nova de Gaia where blending, aging, and bottling takes place. There are many different styles of Port but two broad categories – bottle aged or cask aged. Bottle aged Ports are aged for a short time in oak then bottled unfiltered to age to maturity. These Ports retain the color and fruitness into maturity. Cask aged Ports are aged in wood then filtered and bottled. While cask aged Ports become tawny in color, they are ready to drink on release.

Port Styles

Ruby – The most basic and least expensive style. A blend of several harvests, the wine spends two to three years in stainless steel or oak, which preserves the wine’s red color before bottling.

Tawny - Aged in wooden barrels, exposing it to gradual oxidation and evaporation, causing its color to mellow to a golden-brown after six to ten years “in wood.” Tawny Ports often have pronounced “nutty” flavors.

Aged Tawny – The best tawny Ports are a blend of several vintages, with the average years “in wood” stated on the label: 10, 15, 20, 30 and 40 years are common.

Colheita (pronounced col-YATE-ah, meaning harvest or vintage) - Tawny ports from a single vintage. Tawny and Colheita ports are always ready to drink when released and do not typically benefit from aging in bottle, although they will not degrade either. Because it has already been exposed to oxygen, an open bottle of tawny resists oxidation the longest of all ports.

Crusted - A blend of port wine from several years; the “crust” refers to the sediment that it has in common with Late-Bottled and vintage ports; it is mentioned to distinguish it from the younger and inferior ruby port, which typically does not produce a sediment.

Vintage Character – Essentially premium Ruby port blend aged four to six years prior to bottling. More body and fruit than tawny, they lack the concentration and complexity of Vintage Ports.

LBV (Late-Bottled Vintage) - Port is intended to provide some of the experience of drinking a Vintage Port but without the decade-long wait of bottle ageing. In contrast to Vintage Port’s short time in barrel, LBV Port is aged between four to six years in barrel, to mature it more quickly. Typically ready to drink when released, LBV Ports are the product of a single year’s harvest and tend to be smoother and lighter-bodied than a Vintage Port.

Vintage - The finest and most expensive Port style that accounts for only two percent of all port production. Age in barrels for a maximum of 2 years before bottling, and often require another 5 to 15 years of aging in the bottle before reaching what is considered proper drinking age. Since they are aged in barrels for only a short time, they retain their dark ruby color and fresh fruit flavors. Each port shipper must “declare the vintage” within two years of harvest. Particularly fine vintage ports can continue to gain complexity and drink wonderfully for decades after they were bottled, and therefore can be particularly sought after and expensive wines. Single Quinta Vintage Port is produced from a particular vineyard and often from a lesser “undeclared” year.

AMERICAN PORT
American vintners have been making port-style fortified wines for almost two centuries. Prior to Prohibition, port wines accounted for about 20 percent of all domestic wine production.

Following Repeal and well into the 1950s, domestic port consumption plummeted to only three percent of all wines. Maynard Amerine and E. H. Twight of U. C. Davis described domestic ports as, “cheap, common, insufficiently aged, and made from the wrong grape varieties.”

California wasn’t the only region of the country to use port as a vehicle to revive an industry decimated by the prohibitionists. From the Great Lakes to the Ozarks, the Mississippi to the East Coast, states with once significant grape growing histories slowly began to get back in the wine business. Of particular note were ports from Ohio and Michigan using native grape varieties like Catawba, Norton, and Concord often augmented by wines and brandies from California.

Today, the image of cheap ports in brown paper bags has all but vanished as wineries from California to New York are making exquisite, hand-crafted port-style fortified wines of exceptional quality.

California Port
It’s the mid -1830s. Don Luis – Bordeaux native Jean Louis Vignes – confidently strode the dusty streets of the Mexican pueblo of Los Angeles having completed California’s first “port” wine. Not a young man when he arrived in the new world, Vignes had a vision of establishing great vineyard estates as France and is credited with bringing the first viniferas to California.

By 1857, Los Angeles vintner William Wolfskill was so proud of his “fine old California port that he sent a case to President James Buchanan who graciously accepted the gift predicting that California would be “a great wine producing country”. As good as those first fortified wines may have been, no-one was under the illusion that California port was to rival the true ports of the Douro valley.

The turn of the 20th century saw port as California’s best selling sweet wine. In the years prior to Prohibition, California wineries made about 5 million gallons of port annually. Even during Prohibition, port accounted for about 20% of all legally produced California wine.

In the years following Repeal, port was a principle product of California’s rebuilding wine industry. Zinfandel grown in the Central Valley was the chief component of most California ports and was often blended with Carigane, Mourvedre, and Alicante Bouschet. California producers also continued to make “white port” in the tradition of mission grape-based Angelica.

The first wines to come from California following the repeal of Prohibition were a far cry from the great table wines of today. Most of the surviving vineyards were in the hot Central Valley and produced oceans of inexpensive “jug” wines often dull in color and low in flavor and alcohol. To “kick-up” these insipid wines, grain alcohol was added to produce a cheap “port” wine most often associated with the street bum and the brown bag.

History is cyclic. Fortified wines easily accounted for a quarter of all California wines over a century ago. After World War II, fortified wine accounted for less that three percent of all California wines. Recent U. S. wine sales indicate that dessert wines now account for 7-1/2 percent of all U. S. wine shipments. Growth in dessert wine sales has increased 61 percent in the last five years. Port-style wines are the greatest contributor to this increase.

Peter Prager believes that port-style wines are poised for wide-spread American wine drinking popularity. Prager says, “what we need is to educate the consumer that port wines are delightfully versatile, easy to pair with a wide variety of meals, and fun to drink any time.”

To that end, several dessert wine producers from throughout California have formed the Sweet and Fortified Wine Association. The organization’s mission is to educate the wine drinking public and provide support for the producers of American-made sweet and fortified wines. More information about the association can be found at www.sweetandfortifiedwine.org

From the dusty streets of Los Angeles to an emerging popularity in dessert wines, port has been a player in California’s dynamic wine industry for a over a century and a half.

Port Grapes

Traditional Portugese Varieties

Touriga Nacional

Preeminent grape of the Upper Douro valley of Portugal, Touriga Nacional is the finest and most complete grape for producing vintage port. Fairly vigorous with trailing growth that produces small to medium-size clusters of small berries with a lot of foliage and fewer bunches of grapes. The vines bear tight clusters of thick-skinned, concentrated, tiny blue-black berries which yield only about nine to ten ounces of grapes (compared to roughly 4.4 pounds) per vine. Provides deep colored, and rich flavors to port.

Touriga Francesa

Related to the Touriga Nacional vine, though more fragile. Moderately
vigorous and low yielding, it thrives in warm climates and relatively fertile soils. Thick skinned grapes grow in delicate clusters that may not survive drought conditions. Very high in tannin and extremely highly scented, it is an important contributor of structure and balance.

Tinta Cao

A native of Portugal, Tinta Cao is one of the oldest Douro varieties having be grown cultivated there since at least the 16th century. One of the highest quality port varietals, the low yielding vines produce tiny, compact bunches of small berries. Of moderately high vigor, it thrives in cooler areas, and the thick skin of the berries contributes to its resistance to disease. The vine’s name means “red dog,” a grape that
bites when not ripe.

Tempranillo (Tinta Roriz)

Arguably the finest Spanish red grape variety, Tempranillo is known as Tinta Roriz in the Douro Valley of Portugal. A variant of either Pinot Noir or Cabernet Franc, The name, from “temprana,” or “early,” refers to its trait of ripening early. Vigorous upright shoots produces mid-size, think-skinned fruit subject to powdery and downy mildew. moderate in productivity and highly resistant to heat and aridity.

Souzao
Dark red grape grown to give color to ports made in the Duoro Valley of Portugal. Although this red-wine indigenous to northern Portugal, it’s not widely grown there. Souzão has met with greater success in California where Paul Masson made a Souzao port-style wine in 1968. Vigorous vines produce one of the only grapes in which the juice contains pigment resulting in brilliant rich colored port-style wines with luscious fruit flavors.

Bastardo
Just one of the many allowable varieties for the production of Port The Bastardo grape is generally not as highly regarded as other Port varieties, particularly the prized Touriga Nacional and Touriga Francesa. The vine’s greatest virtue is the high natural sugar content of its grapes. The grape is called Trousseau in the Chablis region of France Trousseau is used to make deeply pigmented, tannic wines.