Port wine - Vinho do porto

Portugal – country, where land ends and ocean starts. Or conversely – ocean ends and land starts. There starts Europe as well. In one of the leading port  - Porto – starts history of the Portuguese wine. The same like Portuguese people are pride in seafood what they have, also they are pride in their wine. In Portugal Dinner without any glass of wine it‘s no diner – they are drinking wine like a water. In the stores you can find any kind of wine, shelfs in a shop are just breaking because amount of wine. The price are good as well – you can buy not that bad wine even for 1 Euro, so for 2, 50 Euro you buy actually the good one! Port surely is more expensive.

History of port-wine origin is very simple. The roads, that long time ago opened for Portugal road to the world, later became the road, what voyage a Port wine. 

Unfortunately, the voyage was long, and wine in the casks started to ferment. But the wine maker were clever and they found a way how to stop procces of fermenting and how to save sweetnes of wine – into a drink they pourped spirit.

So thats way today we do have 16-20 degree natural sweet wine, which name came from the Region of Porto, where are a lot of wine factory, and they have for sure old old traditions how to produce good port-wine.

In Lithuania the most people knows only the red port-wine. But it can be also white or yellow port. Port is different not only in color, also it smell different. Port wine, cork and sardine – are base export commodity. So portuguese are drinking with a pride wine with cheese and whith a cake, whith incredible taste!

In city of Porto tourist are welcome to know a history of wine, they can visit a cellar and wine factorys. It is actually breathtaking to go there and see all this old woods, oak casks, to smell fresh (and not fresh) grapes, and you can‘t imagine that in all of them is the best wine! You want to stay there a little bit longer J The guides in half hour can tell you history and style of port, also varieties of grapes , also about Douro Region, there they are growing. And after this you can enjoy the one of best wine of that factory, like Offley, Craffs and other.

The grapes of which there are more than 40 varieties are picked in September in the special harvest know as "vindema". Again, an invitation from one of the Lodges to go up the River Douro to be present during this harvest is another privilege.

Here is al list of some styles of port: - Vintage - Blended from the wine of the best vineyards in the same year and stored whilst maturing for not less than 15 years. It must be bottled and racked within two years of harvesting. It is the cream of all Ports.

Tawny - A Port that is less sweet in flavour and composed of blending from different aged wines - even a clever mixture of red and white. These Tawny Ports do not improve with ageing.

Ruby - A fruity Port  and as the name suggests, deep red in colour. They blended from wines of different years and take no more than one to three years to mature. 

White - This is either dry or sweet in flavour. Normally chilled before serving and acts as an attractive aperitif in the small manner as a Spanish Sherry.