Wine sales, consultancy and education
I spent so long on the last post discussing Port that I ran out of time to talk about Madeira. So this brief (I promise) post gives a quick overview of the other great fortified wine from Portugal. Only made on the island of Madeira, the wines are fortified (during fermentation in the case of higher quality wines, post maturation for the cheaper products which are effectively just sweetened and coloured). Where Madeira differs so much from other fortified…
After last week’s foray into Spain, this week we move slightly further west on the Iberian Peninsula, into Portugal –to explore Port. PORT Fortification process - Unlike Sherry, with Port the wine is fortified during fermentation (and after a fairly short and quite vigorous period of extraction - which put simply means punching down the cap of skins to ensure tannins and colour is extracted into the red wine) Note: This is still sometimes done by the traditional method ie…
With the clocks going back this weekend, those long winter nights will soon be upon us - that maybe true but what better than to be tucked up indoors with a hearty stew and a warming bottle of red? Portugal is a region that deserves more exploration and there is more, much more to the wines of Portugal than the eponymous fortified ‘Port’, with many indigenous (and often unpronounceable!) grapes and little known regions to explore. Sadly many consumers…