Port

Where it started

The Douro has two designations of origin, Port and Douro.¹ The modern sub-regions, Lower Corgo and Upper Corgo, were drawn after administrative reforms in 1936, with the Upper Douro running east to the Spanish border.²

Where and how it's made

The Douro Demarcated Region covers about 250,000 hectares, about 18 percent of it under vines, worked by roughly 20,000 farmers.² Most soils are schist with some granite at the edges.² Leading red grapes include Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Francesa, Touriga Nacional and Tinto Cão.³

Grapes are trodden in stone lagares or processed in modern wineries; grape spirit, about one part to four parts must-wine, halts fermentation at 19 to 22 percent alcohol.⁴ Sweetness depends on when the brandy goes in.⁵

How to taste it

Ruby styles at 12 to 16°C, tawny at 10 to 14, white at 6 to 10.⁷ Decant old Vintage Port. Pairings from the IVDP: chocolate desserts with young Vintage or LBV, egg-yolk sweets with 10 or 20 Year Old Tawny, hard cheese with older tawnies.⁷

Styles and what the label means

• Ruby, Reserve, LBV, Vintage — the ruby line in ascending quality.⁵
• Vintage — one year, bottled after two to three years, then develops in bottle for 10 to 50 years.⁶
• LBV — one year, four to six years in wood.⁶
• Tawny 10, 20, 30, 40 Years Old — blends aged in wood.⁶
• Colheita — single-year tawny, at least seven years in cask.⁶
• Crusted — blend kept three years in bottle, throws a crust.⁶
• White and Rosé — White Port makes the Portonic with tonic.⁷