Wine from the Ports:
since the Great Age of Discovery
Images and text: Jane Lam
Wine-flush among Hongkongers in the recent decade perhaps occupied merely latest freeze-frames of this long-inherited, daily life-occupying beverage. All dated to at least seven or eight millennia from now, at the heart of Eurasia and later the Mediterranean where ancient civilizations flourished, and later Greek and Roman Empires blazed like the midday suns. At the very western end of this enormous continent, however, had their fleets set up to explore seas west-bound and discovering lands of the new world. Sailed with courage, zest, perhaps greed the explorers did. At the shores of the Atlantic sits the subtropical Iberian Peninsula, at which the nation Portugal locates on the southwest. While the name, from Portus Cale, Portus, a port, of Cala, a Celtic goddess, the coastal lands long experienced warm and dry Mediterranean climates, lush agricultural lands supplied magnitude of rich produce, including grapes, a single crop supplying for wine production, now occupying some seven percent of all arable lands in the country.
Ever since the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, trade routes on land towards the East were thus bygones. Explorations were eventually shifted sea-wise along the coasts of Atlantic reaching West Africa, and eventually half a century later reaching the Americas by the dawn of the 16th Century. Hardships of the journey on the rough seas cannot exempt that featureless on-board routine: monotonous foods with perhaps merely pickles to serve, and many filthy hatches, but all to be slightly blessed with some time intoxicated. To prevent wines from further fermentation and later deteriorating, spirits were often added hence later fortified wines.
Among one of the classics of Old World wines, Port wines, or vinho do Porto, are proud Portuguese aces. How the port earned its current popularity owed somewhat to the twist of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), during which the French and the British took opposite sides, and the latter, import of wines, turned to Portugal, also in the league for the beverage. Fortified ones had far better shots in surviving prolonged transportation, and were eventually well-liked.
The Atlantic-facing Douro Valley has always been home of the Port wines, and the city of Porto at the estuaries had long been a trading port. Newly fermented Ports are transferred to Porto along the river around spring each year, stored and aged in barrels stacked in cellars before further processed then bottled, and transported worldwide. The charm of this city is ubiquitous, right from that snap when one steps off the coach: those vessels anchoring along the Douro banks, and that contemporaneous Dom Luís I Bridge, well contrasting with older, checkered buildings on both flanks. Intoxication after one another, and the next being winery of all sorts along the cityscape.
Eventually paying a visit to that of the Sandeman Cellars, the tour through the antique vaults was led by a dark-dressed staff. That fermenting smell may appear stuffy to some, but not quite to alcoholic's radars: picking up the aura of sweetness instead. Port wines include many varieties, with brewing methodologies and preparations unique to each, and noted that attempting to take each a sip might prove overwhelming: white Port amber-coloured, fruity and herb-scented, while Vau Vintage vivid as ruby, boastful of that bouquet of berries. Getting one or two of these can definitely satisfy that crave for sweet liquor.
Why so sweet?
During fermentation process of Ports a certain portion of spirits (such as aguardente) as to eradicate yeast in-action. At this point some sugars remain unprocessed into alcohol (ethanol), hence retaining that sweet taste. Ports, as a fortified wine, have alcohol concentrations reaching twenty percent.