I visited Portugal and was lucky enough to be the guest of Ramos Pinto in 2005.
My friends and I above Bom Retiro

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 …

Dry white is not the best name for this as it is not dry, only when compared to other white ports in Ramos’ range does this appear dry. Served cold this wine is the prefect summer aperitif and gets any dinner party off to the right start. I prefer to have it with an antipasto starter.

Late bottled vintage, or LBV as it’s usually called, is a ruby port which only contains grapes from the best years aged in oak for 4 or 5 years, then bottled. This LBV is unfiltered for the biggest fruit flavour available for this wine. Although it is ready to drink straight away it will keep in the bottle for a good while and, although not strictly necessary, I find decanting to get a little air into the wine really helps.

Ramos Pintos “still” wine (what they call a regular non-port wine in the valley) is a class leader taken from their two vineyards (hence the name) in the Duoro Superior. It uses the grapes found in their port wine, Touriga Franca (40%), Tinta Roriz (40%) and Touriga Nacional (20%). Tinta Roriz is the Portuguese name for Tempranillo. Hand picked, with only 20% of the wine going in oak with the rest of the wine kept in stainless steel until the wine in oak has aged for 18 months, then mixed back together and bottled.

Our entry level ruby port but that doesn’t mean that it is of any less quality. Blended from several years grapes to create a port of an average of 5 years. Collector port is also unfiltered which is rare for this type of port (don’t worry you wont have to decant it).