A history of Port Wine 3

Today we’re continuing our look into the history of Port Wine and after finding out how to differentiate between the different varieties in regards to the time that they have to age, today we’ll look at a few other differences between them.

Despite what popular belief may say, not all port is red, there is white port; it is white because it is made exclusively from white grapes. White port can be dry or sweet, but regardless of that it is best served chilled.

There’s also tawny colored port which is matured in wood for a longer time than the ruby port is; these aged tawnie are called by some the ‘aristocrats’ of port. You will see tawnies marked as “Ten Years Old”, “Thirty Years Old” or even “Over Forty Years Old”.

The tawnie ports are made by blending wines from different harvests and the named age is the average of all the ages of the wines that were used in the blend. Regardless of their average age though, once the blend is ready it is then mature for at least ten more years in a cask, which in turn gives them that light, tawny color and a slightly dry taste which accentuates the more the wine is matured.

In case it was not clear until now, we’ll talk about the three major factors which mark the differences between one port an another and they are as follows:

–          the quality of the grapes as well as that of the soil in which they are cultivated;

–          the blend of wines that make up each variation of port;

–          the type of maturing that the wine goes through, wooden cask as opposed to in a bottle.

We still have a bit to go on about how port wines ‘work’, keep in mind our Portugal car rental services while on your exploration of them and the country that creates them each year.