Types of Wine

History of Port Wine

Due to the massive success of Port wine in the first half of the 18th century, that led lots of grape growers out of the Douro region, to use their grapes for Port Wine production changing its quality and because of  the difficulty in territorial planning, in 1756 the “Marques de Pombal” restricted the Douro Valley region with 335 milestones, distributed along 250.000 hec.

Making it the oldest defined and protected wine region in the world. Nowadays in the Douro Valley we have 45700 hect cultivated and 39100 grape growers

Port wine is vinified from grapes cultivated and always processed in the demarcated Douro region. Some of the differents sorts of portuguese grapes like for ex: white grapes: Codega, Rabigato, Malvasia Rei, Malvasia Fina, Viozinho, Donzelinho...; red grapes: Tinta Amarela, Tnta Cão, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca...



The grapes are rated from A to F , some of the bests factors are: the grape varietals quality (best one´s Touriga Nacional; Touriga Franca; Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, Tinto Cão)  elevation; sun exposition; location (Baixo Corgo with 45000 hect; Cima Corgo  with 95000 hect and Douro Superior with 110.000 hect)... the soil richness, the dry weather and the high temperatures, the age of the vines, stony ground, the shelter, planting density, slope gradient, yield... an unique "terroir"

The juice is fortified half way through, at the third day of fermentation, with the addition of a Brandy (distilled grape spirits with a alcohol content between 76% - 78%) known as “Aguardente” in order to stop the fermentation ( 440 liters mixed with 110 liters of brandy) and leaving a natural residual sugar in the wine.The minimum allowed is 16,5% for the light dry white and the maximum is 22%, but normally the Port wine is always about 19% - 20%.

The wine is then kept in warehouses and aged in oak pipes or large vats in Vila Nova de Gaia. The origin of this name, "Port" arose during the 17th century,  thanks to the very important seaport city of Porto, where the fortified wine was brought to internal market and abroad.

The “rabelo” boat was in charge of the barrels transportation, on those Douro brave journeys, since the 17h century until May 1971, when it was replaced by train and cistern trucks.

The quality of the oak it´s also very important – french oak is considered the best one, but the majority of the barrels are made with portuguese oak, and for our Port maturation we only use seasoned french oak.

To make  a first quality barrel, you need to wait 100 years for the tree to grow and 3 years more to smoke and dried it, it´s the reason that normally the flavor of caramel is easy to pick in a tawny ( small amounts of sugar in the oaks cells ) normally when we are thinking about buying a 30 years old tawny, an Over 40 years old tawny or even an old Colheita ( single year tawny ) and we consider the price expensive, it´s always very important, to keep in mind some of the highest quality factors...