Wine 101: A Complete Guide to Port Wine

Port wine is a Portuguese dessert wine made from red and white wine grapes and fortified with brandy. Producers utilize different periods of aging and blending to achieve the captivating aromas and high-octane flavor that goes well beyond “sweet.”

Port wine is made exclusively in and around the Douro Valley in Portugal. Port production is concentrated in cities along the Douro River, like Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia (home to Sandeman, Taylor Fladgate, and its port houses, Fonseca Guimaraens, Croft, and Delaforce, Graham’s, and Cockburn’s), where grapes are still crushed by foot.

Similar to the naming restrictions surrounding Champagne, EU law maintains that port must come from Portugal in order to be sold under the name. As there are no such regulations outside of the EU, Portuguese producers have begun including a certification seal on their bottles to denote its provenance and legitimacy.

After an initial fermentation stage, the base wine is fortified with brandy to halt the fermentation process and capture the flavors of the fruit at its peak. This also traps a higher percentage of residual sugars than usual, which gives port wine its sweetness and high alcohol content. The port is then transferred to casks—or, in some cases, straight to bottles—for just under two years, at which point it can be blended with other vintages or left to continue aging.

All ports are sweet, but depending on how long it’s been aged and the grapes used in its production—there are upwards of 50 varieties used—the wine can evoke many different shades of sweetness.

Port is a medium-tannin wine with notes of ripe, musky berries like raspberry and blackberry, bitter chocolate, and buttery, nutty caramel. Older ports contain concentrated notes of dried fruit, while younger ports taste of lighter-bodied red fruits, like strawberries.

There are 4 main types of port:

1. 1. Ruby: Made from red wine grapes indigenous to Portugal like Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), and Tinta Barraco, ruby red port is an affordable indulgence: Bright, fruity, fresh, and made for immediate consumption. Reserve ruby port is considered a premium version of the form and meant to be enjoyed young. Late bottled vintage (LBV) port is also made to drink after a relatively short aging period of about five years. Vintage ruby ports capture the nuances and highs of a single year or vintage. Bottles of single vintage ruby are allowed to age as long as tawny ports in some cases. Bottles labeled “crusted” refer to a blend of more than one vintage year, highlighting a number of attributes from many given vintages, while “single quinta” denotes a vintage port from a single estate.
2. 2. Rosé: While rosé port is technically a ruby port, employing slightly less skin contact to achieve a paler color just as in standard rosés, it is a distinct new arrival to the Porto portfolio. Traditional ruby port is associated with darker, ripe fruits, but rosé port dips into the lighter end of the red fruit spectrum with notes of strawberry, tart raspberry, and stewed cranberries giving a lift to its sweetness. Rosé is best enjoyed very well-chilled.
   
3. 3. White: Made from white grapes like Rabigato, Viosinho, Malvasia, and Gouveia, white port tastes foremost of stone fruits like white peach and apricot, as well as lemon peel. While white port may be less well-known in places like the United States, in Porto, it is commonly topped off with tonic as an aperitif or incorporated into cocktails.
4. 4. Tawny: Tawny port is a red wine port that has been barrel-aged for a longer period, resulting in an amber color and more complex flavor profile. Colheita tawny ports exhibit a single harvest year allowed to age for a minimum of 10 years. Aged tawny port can be found in 10-, 20-, 30-, and 40-year increments, exhibiting all the flavor signatures of oxidative wines: Warm spices, hazelnut, and concentrated dried fruits like date, fig, and prune. The longer tawny ports sit, the deeper they become; a 40–year old tawny, for example, leans into the potency of pure vanilla spice, and transforms caramel into something closer to butterscotch.

Port is mostly known as a dessert wine, and that’s not just because of its sweetness: Port is best paired with similarly bold dishes, ingredients, and flavor combinations, most of which show up at the end of a meal. Funky aged cheeses, Black Forest cake, vanilla ice cream; anything that accentuates or mimics the caramel and chocolate notes in an aged tawny is a winner. Ruby port reductions are also incredibly dynamic with roasted meats, lending its fruity acidity to rich, smoky, or salty flavors.

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