port pour vous

I did promise and simply did not deliver. So will do so now. The Duoro, Portugal - they make what might be termed "traditional" wine there as well, and quite nice stuff too. However, what they're really famous for is the fortified stuff, the stuff you finish a proper dining experience off with pre-cigars and brandy, the stuff that can match and caress both stilton and chocolate with grace, the beautiful, complex and sure-to- get-you-more-drunk-than-you-think-you-are port.
This lovely, a simple non-vintage, is quite impressive, given what I paid for it - a mere 5 pounds. Definitive dark chocolate with hints of coffee and leather, counterbalance gorgeous thirst-quenching blackberry and plum fruit. Shouldn't be too surprised, Dow's is a reputable house, been around for centuries...since 1798, to be precise. They know their stuff. Red port wine is usually made from a combination of grapes, including Tinta Barroca, Tinta Cao, Tempranillo, Touriga Francesa and Touriga Nacional (white port is also made and usually ingested as an aperitif). The port featured right now, here, would be classified as a "ruby port", and is not meant to be aged but drunk forthwith :).
To produce port wine, one must start out in the same manner as with "traditional" wine production, by encouraging the grape juice to begin to ferment via addition of yeast that converts the sugar in the grape to alcohol. The difference in port wine production is that the winemaker only allows the fermentation process to convert HALF of the sugar in the juice - she/he then stops fermentation by adding clear brandy of proof 150, which kills off the yeast. Thus there is residual sugar left in the wine, which gives the final product its sweet taste, but the wine also contains a hefty amount of alcohol, so will get one soused (trashed) rather more rapidly than a "traditional".
After drinking port, one usually finds a red rim around one's lips - not the most attractive phenomenon - and a lovely purple fuzzy coating on one's tongue. Both of these consequences of indulgence are produced by the tannins contained in the wine - tannins are highly coloured compounds, more on this next time - and that very special fuzzy coat that would deter even the most devoted lover from tonguing one, at least in the oral region, is a neat little chemical composite coagulation of wine tannins and one's salivary proteins. Such a coating is observable with the drinking of any tannic wine, but is more pronounced with port, possible due to the additional sugars present. The best way to get rid of such nastiness and encourage kisses is to immediately follow consumption with the highly acidic beverage called champagne - works like a dream to clean up the tannin, as the acid dissolves the coagulates, making them water soluble and hence immediately removable. Happiness - sheer indulgence is to definitively be followed by further, and both go screamingly well with cheese! :*