Porto Wine

What is exactly the Porto beverage?
By Jose Santiago Roque Blanco
The Porto also known as port is a Portuguese fortified wine made from grapes brewed in the demarcated Douro region. The wine produced in this region is fortified by the addition of a neutral grape spirit in order to stop the fermentation and both boost the alcohol content around 24%, and leave residual sugar in its flavor givinga properly sweet taste to it. The fortification spirit is sometimes referred as brandy, but it bears little resemblance to commercial brandies. After fortification the wine is stored for ageing in cellars, before bottling to conclude its bouquet right after years of resting in the bottle. As for we know the wine name is given only to the liquid resulted from the alcoholic fermentation of thegrapes juice, without addition of any substance which is regulated and protected by local laws depending of the country it is made. This means that every state has their own denomination of origins and regulation into their elaboration methods.
In order to produce Porto wine it is necessary the addition of brandy, this action, could take the Porto out of wine classification, but it is already outfrom spirit classification because it is not distilled, in same manner happen with liqueor categorization for the reason that is neither ethylic alcohol with essence flavored nor quite more sugar added; so what is exactly the Porto? In any case, the Porto is defined as wine by EU legislation in wine regulation contents which is produced in the Duero region with its own denomination of origin, to getto know why is called wine we have to dig into the Britain history around 17th century, in which, England stopped trading business with France and emerge the necessity to find a substitute of French wine which, in such times, was the most demanded. In the search of a good quality wine to take to England, traders were looking around Europe and their voyages took them to Do Duero region, to beexactly, inside the Lamego monastery, where they had wines with a quirky taste coming from the addition of brandy in its fermentation process, this magnificent taste was very pleasant in their palate and quickly took it to England loading their ships with some Porto wine barrels. whereas some of the problems that the French wine had while its transportation was the fragility on its taste, in which,the sea water, the sun and high temperatures exposed, had a terrible role-play in its flavor, the Porto wine really shone in this matter thanks to its fortification method, which was quickly thanked in Britain enjoyment favoring in its demand. 50 years later, the fortification method in Porto wine was popularized in its production around all Duero region by el Marques de Pombal, who founded theagriculture general company “del Alto Douro”, agency in charged to standardize prices, laying down production zones and give the wine classification according to kinds, also gave the bases to be applied to the first denomination of origin controlled imposed in the wine system law.
To appreciate any Porto wine There are 6 kind in its typology, Ruby, Tawny, Colheita, LBV, Crusted and Vintage and it cancome in 3 different sweetness level: sweet, semi dry and dry depending in times when the brandy is added; but this regulations classify the Porto from youngest to older ones starting with Ruby which is a red wine and the youngest one. It is a blend of various harvest and aged in wood barrels around 2 or 3 years with strong fruity aroma.
In second category we got Tawny whose name comes from theword toasted and is a wine that has stayed for long time in barrels getting a reddish brown tone. Even though it is a blend of various vintage is very common having in its label the harvest age following its category finding tawnies from 10 to 40 years, with tones of nuts, citric skins and raisins in its taste.
In third category there is the great Colheita given its name to a aged tawny...