The origins of port, the most unknown popular wine among the French – L’Express

They ignore the happiness that comes with a vintage, the jewel of ports, an LBV, a colheita or an old tawny fifty or even eighty years old (known as “very very old”), which Anglo-Saxon lovers delight in, better educated in the infinite nuances of the oldest regulated designation in the world, in 1756. It is true that British and Dutch merchants took an active part in its development for two centuries. Famous houses – Taylor’s, Graham’s, Niepoort, Churchill, Sandeman… – still bear their name. But today, No. 1 is French: the La Martiniquaise group holds a third of the market with its Porto Cruz and Dalva brands.

It is therefore high time that our compatriots learned about the vermilion, garnet or purple color of Ruby, a category of non-oxidative ports with incandescent deliciousness. Let them taste the quintessence of a vintage bottle with a meal. Let them marvel, as a digestive, at the golden patina of old tawny, whose fading color, over the decades, ends up merging with those of equally august amber whites. Certainly, the appellation supervised by the very meticulous Douro and Port Wine Institute, a state body, maintains an extremely complex classification. But are the French not familiar with the equally dense division of French AOCs?

Let’s start by telling them the story of this heroic beverage. For centuries, the Portuguese sculpted the slopes of the Douro Valley into terraces. On this mountain remodeled stone by stone, a folding of thousands of serpentine lines follows the slopes and ridges like ripples on the surface of the water. But there is no water in this arid shale massif: barely 400 to 800 millimeters of precipitation per year.

In summer, temperatures exceed 45°C. In the evening, the rock, full of heat, smolders with embers, cooled at night by the humidity rising from the river. In solitary or sometimes double rows on the narrow cultivated strips, the rickety-looking vines and a few olive trees exhaust themselves in extracting a few drops from this thirsty terroir, cut off from the oceanic influence by the reliefs. This spectacle, classified on the UNESCO world heritage list, constitutes the largest mountain vineyard in the world. Portuguese law protects 5,400 kilometers of dry stone walls in these 43,000 hectares of terraces, where more than a hundred indigenous grape varieties coexist.

Red wine from the Douro went down to Porto by river, on flat-bottomed boats, to be shipped to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands after these countries had turned away from Bordeaux claret, overtaxed by Colbert in 1667. More precisely : he arrived at Nova de Gaïa, opposite Porto, in vast warehouses where he was sheltered from the bishop’s taxes. A little hooch was added to the barrels to help it withstand the rigors of the journey. This fortified wine was fortunate to please the consumer, who even found it better. Cunning became the norm during the 18th century. This is how port was born, “mutated” or cut with a fifth of wine brandy at 70 degrees after two or three days of fermentation – while some sugar remained in the must. The operation produces a sweet wine enhanced in alcohol.

Regulations have long imposed compulsory aging in the Nova de Gaïa cellars, under cool and humid oceanic influence, protected from the blight of the Douro. There, the wines wait, two years or a century, in gigantic 40,000 liter vats which protect their youth, while others face aging in barrels. The aging methods (reductive or oxidative) and the art of blending have given rise to the different categories of port.

Furthermore, it has now been possible, since 1985, to mature these wines in the vineyard area. An inflection for two reasons: the appearance of air-conditioned cellars and European law, which deemed the stage through Vila Nova de Gaïa discriminatory for family producers. The measure had little effect on the wines, but it partly emptied the warehouses of the mouth.

In 2020, Taylor’s magnificently converted 50,000 square meters of hangars to install a wine school, twelve restaurants, luxury Portuguese craft galleries and six museums. In its vocation as a “cultural district”, the World of Wine complex explores the vineyards of the world, the four seasons of viticulture, the cork industry and nine thousand years of human creativity to manufacture cups, glasses and bottles, through the personal collection of CEO Adam Bridges.

The French group Vranken (Rozes and Sao Pedro brands) was among the first traders to invest massively in the Douro, building a large winemaking and aging center at Quinta de Monsul. Despite the inevitable modernization of production, director Antonio Saraiva perpetuates the trampling in five granite “lagares” for the so-called “special” categories. This traditional practice consists of crushing the grapes by the foot in stone basins. Five men in a line make crossings shoulder to shoulder, alternating lengths and widths for four hours – “until the bunches disappear under a mirror of juice”, specifies the chancellor of the brotherhood. “In the past, a candle flame made it possible to monitor that the air was still breathable”, because of CO2 releases.

In Alijo, a large wave of wood covers, like a hall, the gigantic ultra-modern facilities of Granvinhos, the port subsidiary of La Martiniquaise. An articulated pipe, rotating like a compass, distributes the berries sorted using an optical sensor and crushed in a vibrating machine into a double row of tanks arranged in a semi-circle. In this industrial production method, the maturation is carried out after separating the juice from the marc to save alcohol. On the line of honorary ports, the lagares are made of stainless steel and the crushing is carried out by robots.

It is in her Ventozelo quinta that La Martiniquaise perpetuates the eternal port: an estate of 400 hectares with its feet in the Douro and three kilometers long, its head in the stars and the silence. Sixty-six kilometers of cornice track crisscross the terraces, around an old wine-growing hamlet transformed into a charming hotel. The rooms occupy old stables, barns and even two disused vats. A museum tells the story of the frugal and hardworking economy of the Douro, a vegetable garden and fruit trees try to provide for the needs of the restaurant. In this convict vineyard, inhuman and superhuman, Ventozelo reveals the magical truth of port: a hug escaped from hell.

In order to introduce “premium” port to customers who only know supermarket shelves, the Grandes Marques union organizes a competition every two years to designate its best ambassador from a selection of sommeliers. The final of the 20th edition, on November 6, dedicated Frédéric Schaetzel, who works at the prestigious Auberge de l’Ill, in Haut-Rhin. The accession of port to the world of great wines will inevitably pass through these allies and prescribers. They insist on the right serving temperature, around 10° for the whites, no more than 16° for the reds. And do not lack imagination for the agreements with the lord of the Douro (read on lexpress.fr).

Wines with a purple color, of great fruity intensity (blackberry, cherry, blackcurrant, cocoa), preserved from oxidation by short aging (eight years maximum) in large tuns. They must be drunk quickly after opening. In this category, little known in France, we distinguish Vintages, from a single vintage – in a remarkable year – or even from a single estate for Single Quinta Vintage, and bottled after two years. But it is better to wait around ten years to appreciate their peak. Late Bottled Vintage are slightly less prestigious vintage rubies that have been aged for four to six years. Born from the need to recover the bottoms of barrels, Crusted, a blend of unfiltered vintages with an apparent deposit, are very fashionable.

Raised in contact with wood and air, these oxidative ports, red or copper in color, have aromas of hazelnut, almond, raisin, then, after twenty years – when they become interesting – of caramelized date, dried fig, prune and candied orange. Beyond thirty years, the aromas become more spicy (cinnamon, curry, cumin, ginger) and evolve towards honey, nuts, camphor, coffee. These are necessarily blended wines. Seniority corresponds to an average age.

From extra-dry (50 grams of sugar per liter) to lagrima (more than 130 g/l), the whites take on a patina, taking on notes of mango or dried banana, and a beautiful amber tint.

Intermediate quality, beyond basic.

Both red and white, they designate quality vintage batches, aged for at least seven years in barrels.

In order to introduce “premium” port to customers who only know supermarket shelves, the Great Brands Union organizes a competition every two years to designate its best ambassador from a selection of sommeliers from around the world. The final, on November 6, dedicated Frédéric Schaetzel, who works at the prestigious Auberge de l’Ill, in Haut-Rhin. The accession of port to the world of great wines will inevitably pass through these allies and prescribers. First advice from Grégory Mio, sommelier in Luxembourg: “The right temperature, a little cool. That is 8-9° for a white, 10-12° if it is old, and 15-16° for a red. Otherwise, the sugar and alcohol take over the aromas.”

On a study trip to Portugal in October, the semi-finalists did not lack imagination when it came to food and wine pairings. Quentin Loisel, of the Tour d’Argent in Paris, suggests an extra-dry white with ceviche, a rice pudding with a white colheita, a parmentier of duck confit and sweet potato on a Tawny, even a watered chili con carne of a Ruby. “The sugar counteracts the clash between the alcohol and the spiciness,” he explains. Fabien Etienne, a consultant in Malta, imagines a chicken tikka masala with a Vintage, a cinnamon apple pie with an old Tawny, a pear-Roquefort tart with a red Colheita, or chocolate-pecan with an LBV. Bottles available at your wine merchant!