uncorked
In the 1700s, winemaking was a messy, unpredictable business. As a result, canny wine exporters often doused their barrels of wine with alcohol to bolster their stability before shipping. Consumers liked these souped-up wines and today there are many wine regions that specialise in wines fortified with alcohol. Madeira, sherry and Australia's Rutherglen muscats and tokays are all examples
of fortified wines, but port is the most renowned.
Port is produced from grapes grown on the unmercifully steep hills of Portugal's Duoro Valley. Make no mistake about it: this region is the most inhospitable site for vineyards in the world. The Douro River carves a precipitous gorge through mountains so stony the vines cling to vertical terraces painstakingly cleft over centuries with chisels and iron poles. Today's vignerons still sculpt the hardened stone slopes to accommodate their vines.
Some 90 grape varieties grow tenaciously under the blazing sun on these hillsides, but in practice only five or so are commonly used in port production, with the finest being the highly tannic Touriga Nacional. The valley's indigenous grapes are so burdened with tannin it became common practice to retain some sweetness in the wine to counteract its mouth-drying effects. This is the only commercial wine region where manual foot-stomping of grapes can still be spotted at top properties; it is thought manual crushing increases the colour extraction without an associated increase of bitterness and rough tannins.
Three or four days after crushing the grapes, when the feasting yeasts have produced 6 to 7 per cent alcohol, the winemakers call a halt to the party by dousing the fermenting juice with a neutral brandy. Like many of us after too much alcohol at a party, the yeasts pass out, leaving grape sweetness behind to counterfoil the wine's tannic ferocity.
There are many styles of port, ranging from lighter-coloured, simple ruby ports to the highly acclaimed aged tawny and single quinta ports, but the most important style to remember is vintage port. Most port wines are made from a blend of years in accordance with a particular house style, but a few times each decade the port producers decide the vintage conditions were so excellent the wines should not be a multi-year blend. These are the highly collectable 'vintage ports'.
Vintage ports are of such high calibre they are expected to develop and evolve in the bottle for decades before reaching their peak. Thus, a bottle of vintage port is often given as a gift to new parents with the expectation it will be opened when their newborn reaches adulthood.
