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Port and the Douro: Book Notes

Some interesting excerpts from “Port and the Douro”, by Richard Mayson.

I found the book helpful in providing more context about the history of Port while preparing for the dipWSET fortified wine module.

I personally do like the sweetness and fruity notes of Ports, but the high alcohol is challenging. It is also special to be drinking wines older than yourself.

The story of Port and the Douro is inseparable from Portugal’s emergence as a trading nation, in which England, another rapidly developing mercantile power, played a crucially important part.

The book discusses this Portugal England relationship, which played both a factor in Port growth and also subsequent decline.

Hard as it is to imagine today, the steep terraced slopes of the Douro were then mainly producing cereals as well as sumagre (sumac), a plant used as a dyeing and tanning agent that can still be found growing wild all over the region.

Most of the Ports shipped to England in the early years of the eighteenth century were dark and austere reds, fermented to dryness, earning them the name ‘black-strap’. In a determined effort to make sure that the wines arrived at their destination in good condition, many merchants would add a generous measure of brandy probably raising the level of alcohol to around at least 15 or 16% by volume.

Port these days is typically around 20% ABV.

[As of 1945] just 2 per cent of all Port was bottled in Oporto. The remainder continued to be shipped in cask and bottled at its destination

The late bottled vintage (LBV) style evolved largely by default. In the lean years from the 1930s to the 1950s, it was not uncommon for a vintage Port to remain in wood for rather longer than normal while the wine was awaiting a buyer. Under the terms of subsequent legislation, many of these wines were technically ‘late bottled’.

Once a vintage Port has been bottled, it continues to develop and evolve over a period of fifteen to twenty years or more before it is considered as being ready to drink. Rather like the seven ages of man, vintage Port customarily enjoys a short, fragrant bloom of youth before it shuts down and endures ten, even fifteen years of surly, spotty adolescence. Then it slowly begins to emerge as a fully-fledged adult, gaining stature and gravitas until the Port reaches its peak, often at around twenty or thirty years of age.

Once a bottle has been opened, all Ports begin to deteriorate after a short period of time. Rubies and filtered LBVs begin to lose some of their freshness and vibrancy a week or so after opening and should be drunk within three weeks. Having matured for longer in cask, aged tawnies will stay in good condition for longer after opening: a month or two if kept in the refrigerator. Like all great wines, vintage Ports (along with crusted and bottle-matured LBVs) should be consumed within a few days of opening.

That said, I have tasted Port that I left around for months and it was still drinkable, though some of the fruit was muted.

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