I visited Portugal and was lucky enough to be the guest of Ramos Pinto in 2005.

I, and an intrepid gang of wine industry friends, explored all four of the vineyards owned by Ramos and saw the port lodge in Porto. It was an amazing experience, one I won’t forget. We have had a long-standing relationship with the port house. Dad has been stocking the products for 20 years but that didn’t stop me from not knowing nearly enough about the product, or indeed port as a whole. So, with the knowledge that I was going to go on this trip I went on amazon and bought a couple of specialist books on the area and read them, then did my research on the internet.

Port is an area with lots of history and traditions. Port has a very British history and with names like Taylors, Croft and Cockburn it’s easy to believe. The British involvement came from the beginning of the 18^th century where a treaty between Britain and Portugal meant that wine could be shipped to the UK with low duty in return for cod fishing rights. At the same time, Britain was at war with France so Portugal became our main source of wine. It would often not make the long boat journey and so the process of fortifying it was born. Although there are lots of lovely stories of young wine being taken over in boats and the sailors spiking the wine with brandy and so creating port by mistake, this is almost certainly untrue but is a great romantic story for creating the slightly baffling process of making fortified wine.

Fortification of wine is, at its basic level, the process of stopping fermentation before all the sugar turns to alcohol. The process stops naturally at 12% – 15% when the alcohol level kills off the living yeast. In the case of port, grape brandy is added to kill off the yeast early, leaving a residual sugar in the wine before it turns into a traditional wine.

Our first stop on the trip was to Quinta do Bom Retiro right in the centre of the valley or the Cima Corgo region of the Douro.

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It is a beautiful property, which has been in the family since 1919, although it is one of the original Quintas from the 18^th century. Tradition is still very much in evidence with the grapes still trodden by foot instead of machine pressed. This is not just for the sake of it, they believe that the softer breaking of the skins adds to the flavour. They are, in fact, very forward in their thinking being one of the first houses to separate the grapes into different varietals (Tinta Barroca, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz and Touriga Nacional). Traditionally, grapes were grown together in a mixture, with no distinction between grape varieties, and are still widely grown that way today. Until the work done by Ramos Pinto, not much was known about the characteristics of the styles of grape. Although at this site they still have the mixture original plantings they have also put aside the plots of land for single varietals giving them lots of control and options over their product.

The Quinta also boasts one of the first swimming pools ever to built in the area. The setting was amazing, enjoying white port with tonic overlooking the incredible landscape was something I will never forget. (I must drink more White Port and Tonic).

Adjoning Quinta do Bom Retiro is Urtiga, the Quinta that used to produce the house port Gales stocked. Now their grapes are blended with the grapes of Bom Retiro to make the wine for the Collector Port that is our new house port.

Bom Retiro produces all the ruby and vintage port that is made by Ramos before it is aged at the port lodge in Porto in its impressive facility. The tour was educational, seeing for the first time ever the way that their wine is produced, from start to finish, gave me much more of a link with drink.

The grapes at Bom Retiro are also solely responsible for the 20 year old tawny which has won best fortified wine award by Decanter magazine. A prestigious award considering the category is not limited to just port.

We also stock Ramos Pinto’s still wine (their definition of regular non fortified wine). Duas Quintas is a new string to the company’s bow, the name of the wine refers to the two new vineyards in the Douro Superior area of the valley. Both are very modern in their approach to making wine.

Elvamoria

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Elvamoria was one of the best experiences I’ve had. The place was truly in the middle of nowhere, a long trip by car through nothing but dirt for most of the last section. The view in the picture above is the first you see from the road and the first green in an age. The vineyard was hand picked by José António Ramos Pinto Rosas from military maps. The perfect plot of land to grow grapes for mechanisation. Port is famous for its steep valleys with tiered slopes. Elvamoria is relatively shallow and close to the river giving Jose the blank slate to grow grapes from scratch, not using the mixture vines, but planting a patch of varietal in the perfect area. As you can see from the photograph above, the vines are arranged up the hill as opposed to going along the contours. The book was really rewritten by the project but it could all have been different. The valley was threatened by the planned building of a government dam. The whole plot would have been under water but for the finding of rock etchings in caves on the land. The vineyard has a museum on the site to this day to look after the area’s ancient treasures.

Along with the Duas Quintas, this plot is solely responsible for the 10 year old tawny we stock.

Quinta Bons Ares

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It is the vinification centre for the two vineyards, bought for its proximity to Elvamoria and its altitude which makes it perfect for storing. the wine here. As at Bom Retiro, it is fermented and barrelled and in some cases bottled on site. The facilities are spotless and very systematic.

Seeing this all first hand is great, but with port it is only half the story. The ageing process determines the outcome of the port greatly, this almost solely happens at the port lodge in Porto.

The port lodges are built into the side of a hill and are north facing, allowing the minimum temperature fluctuation so that the wine can age consistently, Ramos is like a labyrinth, I assume other port houses must be the same with endless rows of ageing barrels and bottles.

Port wine falls into several categories

Ruby : Is your regular port which makes up the vast majority of production, blended from several years port and aged in concrete casks before being bottled.

Vintage : Only the best years harvest gets made with the grapes from that year. Only aged for two years in the barrel, they do the vast majority of ageing in the bottle and take a good 10 years to get even close to being ready. Considered the best of the area’s wine they are rare and can be expensive.

L B V (or late bottled vintage):This is the same grape from the declared vintage year but left in the barrel a little longer. This means that you get the best grapes ready to drink straight away. The wine rarely gets much better in the bottle as all the sediment has been removed..

Tawny: Aged in the barrel allowing the port to take on the character of the wood and be oxidised by the semi permeable nature of the barrel. Lighter in colour, they lose a lot of the fruit character and take on a nutty vanilla character. The age on the label is an average age. In Ramos Pinto’s case they put a very little amount of their oldest ports in all their tawny ports.

Then we went to the tasting laboratory.

This is where the blending happens, with cask samples from all over the lodge it seems like a laboratory, light and airy, a complete contrast to the dark caves we had been in. It is a fascinating process. It is here that we tasted the entire range of wines they made. As a special treat, we also had the smallest taste of the first port every produced by the company - a real honour .The age of this wine - over 100 years old - really showed in the tasting, with the wine separating into two distinct tastes, one taste of spirit and one of subtle fruit and vanilla, instead of the balanced nature of younger ports.

We went to the museum and company offices, which are on Ramos Pinto Road, which overlooks the Eiffel Bridge.

This is where we found out about the family, one of the few Portuguese family port houses, the great man José António Ramos Pinto Rosas and his tremendous impact on the direction of the company.

The trip was truly educational and has left me with an expensive port habit which I feel the need to satisfy regularly.