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years in oak, but then do the rest
of their ageing in the bottle. They
may need upwards of fifteen years
before they are ready, and may
last for decades more. This is the
finest quality level of Port.
Single Quinta Port: Most houses
have quintas (vineyards) where
they source their best fruit. In non-
declared years they will release
the wine from the quinta as a sin-
gle quinta wine. These wines can
be excellent value, frequently close
to vintage quality.
Late Bottled Vintage Port: Good
Port houses still produce good
LBV wines. Such wines have been
aged in wood for longer than
Vintage Port, four years in total,
or five years for a Traditional LBV.
This prolonged ageing results in a
wine ready to drink at a younger
age.
Tawny Port: Wine aged in oak for
a long time, resulting in a tawny
colour. The age will be stated on
the label, frequently ten or
twenty years, less
often thirty or even
forty years.
White Port: A
heavy aperitif
wine,
varying
in style,
often
with a
hint of
oxida-
tion.
Other
styles:
Ruby is
a young
and simple
style. Vintage Character is a Port
blended to resemble a vintage
wine (often unsuccessfully in my
opinion), and Crusted Port is a
blend of several Vintage Character
Ports.
Port - my top wines: Fon-
seca, Taylors, Quinta do
Noval, Warres, Dows, Gra-
hams, Niepoort. Good value
comes from the single quinta wines
of these companies, but also from
Quinta do Vesuvio, Gould Camp-
bell, Smith Woodhouse, Sande-
man, and others.
Moving South
Further south the wines are much
less significant. Around Lisbon are
the regions of Estremedura and
Ribatejo, although neither produce
any great wines. A number of tiny
subregions, including Carcavelos,
Colares, Bucelas and Setúbal
produce a few interesting bottles,
although they are rarely seen in
the UK.
My top wines: Bright Brothers (run
by Peter Bright, an Australian flying
winemaker) produces a few good
value wines in Estremedura and
Ribatejo.
Getting much further south,
Alentejo can be interesting, as can
Terras do Sado. On the Algarve a
number of DOCs produce unsur-
prisingly forgettable wine. These
include Lagos, Portimâo, Lagoa
and Tavira.
My top wines: Cartuxa, Quinta
do Carmo (both Alentejo)
Getting Serious Again - Madeira
The island of Madeira is a small
outpost of Portugal off the west
coast of Africa, which produces a
fortified wine based on the Ser-
cial, Verdelho, Bual and Malmsey
grapes. It is
made in
a similar
style to
Port,
with
the
addition of
grape spirit causing cessation of
fermentation. An additional fea-
ture, however, is the heating of the
wine, at perhaps 50ºC, for about
six months. This practice apparent-
ly stems from (another wine fable
coming up) the improvement in the
wine noted when it was transport-
ed on long sea journeys through
hot climates in the 17th century.
Heating the wine, together with
exposure to oxygen, oxidises and
stabilises it. As a result, Madeira
is a long lived wine, with vintages
from the early 20th and late 19th
centuries drinking well at present.
My top wines: Henriques & Hen-
riques, Madeira Wine Company,
Blandy.
Vintages
The most recently declared Port vin-
tage was 2000, a vintage of ex-
cellent quality. Other Port vintages
of note include 1997, 1994, 1991,
1987 (generally not declared but
there are some excellent single
quinta wines), 1985, 1983, 1977,
1975, 1970, 1967, 1966, 1963,
1960, 1955, 1948, 1947, 1945