Port, a fortified wine, is generally characterized as sweet, grapey and rich. There are three basic types - ruby, tawny and white, but the wine's final character depends on whether it reaches maturity in bottle or cask. Wood ports are only bottled when ready to drink and are not meant for further aging in the bottle. They will, however, hold fine for years. These ports retain their freshness after being opened and need no decanting. Wood-aged Ports all have stopper corks. Bottle ports mature in bottle after two years of cask aging. They will age for decades in the bottle, softening and maturing, and will develop sediment as they receive no filtration prior to bottling. There are two other styles of bottle-matured ports: Traditional Late Bottle Vintage and Crusted Ports. The English discovered the wine of Portugal's mountainous Douro River valley in the late 17th century. Originally it was a dry, red table wine, but in 1820 there was a particularly ripe vintage. All the sugars in the juice could not be converted to alcohol, so an extraordinarily sweet, rich wine was produced naturally. English consumers clamored for more, and so producers began to stop fermentation sooner and sooner by adding increasing amounts of brandy to emulate the prized wine of 1820. Though Port had been crafted in the Douro Valley of Northern Portugal for centuries, it was the British merchants of the 17th and 18th centuries who helped transform Port (or Porto as the Portuguese call it) into one of the world's finest of wine selections. |
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