Port Wine
Friday, November 9th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
There are literally hundreds of different species and hybrids of grapes. They come from all over the world, Australia, United States, France, Canada, South America just to mention a few locations. Each grape type lends certain qualities to the finished wine. By far the most poplular types of wine are white and red. White can be made from any grape providing that the skins are removed prior to fermenting. With red wines, the skins of the grape are included in the fermentation process.
One of the most popular wines served at the dinner table is port wine. Port wine is a sweet wine that goes wonderfully as a dessert wine. Some of the best port wine in the world comes from Portugal, the Douro Valley in the northern provinces. Vineyards all over the world grow grapes for port wine. Port wine is fortified with distilled grape spirits after pressing to raise the alcohol content in the finished product. Because port wine is produced all over the world, it has many different versions.
Port wine is a very rich, very sweet, very heavy wine. It also possesses a much higher alcohol content than most other wines do. This is true of all of the different styles of port wine that are available. The higher alcohol content is because of the way that the wine has been aged, either via reductive aging or oxidative aging. Reductive aging takes place whenever wine is matured and aged in sealed tanks with no exposure to air. On the other hand, wines that have matured in barrels with a small amount of exposure to oxygen have been through oxidative aging.
While vintage port wine is not as popular of a selection as some of the other varieties of port wine, it is truly Portugal’s flagship wine. It is made entirely from grapes that come from a vintage year. Of course, this causes this wine to be more expensive than many of the other port wines. With these wines, you will also discover that the flavor is a lot more concrete and pungent, which is why it is really worth the extra bit of money. Even this wine is usually paired with desserts, but you can also give it a try with a variety of other sweet tasting foods as well, so that you can determine your own personal preferences for this type of wine.
Ken
