A Vintage Year

December 4, 2011

My hostesses, Professors Alexandra and Philippa, wanted to make sure I enjoyed Porto and got to see the sights. Today we started with a tour of the Sandeman port wine caves. Port, as you may know, is a fortified wine product that can only legally be produced in the valley of the Douro River east of Porto. The grapes are picked in the Douro Valley where initial fermentation begins. The wine is called “fortified” because at a certain point neutral brandy with 77% alcohol is added to the grape mixture. This stops the fermentation process, leaving sugar present. This is why port is sweet. Port is aged for a minimum of three years. It is either blended or dated. The dated ports come from years in which the grape harvest is special and the grapes are only from that year. The blended ports contain a mixture of wines from different years. These do not improve with age and can be drunk at any time after purchase. The dated or vintage years can age for decades. The vintage 1906 bottles in the picture sell for 3000 euros each! Port comes in white, tawny, and ruby. The rubies are aged in the bigger barrels. They have less contact with the oak and oxygen so they age slowly. Sandeman was founded in 1790 by a Scotsman. He bought the warehouse where we had the tour in 1811, and the wines have been produced there ever since. Sandeman was one of the first companies to bottle, label and advertise their port. The “Don” became their trademark in 1928. Because Sandeman also makes Spanish sherries, the Don wears a Spanish sombrero and a Portuguese student’s cape. We loved the advertisement from the early 1900s suggesting that you should give the doctor who delivered your baby a bottle of port!