portocityguide.com

Welcome to Portocityguide.com! Here you will find an insider's guide to all things Porto -- plus tips on what to visit in the Douro wine region and Northern Portugal more generally. Our goal is to be the most comprehensive, selective, reliable, and independent source of online information on what Porto has to offer! If you enjoy what you find here, you may want to consider subscribing to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Taylor’s Fladgate (or just Taylor’s) is one of the greatest names in port, with over 300 years of history. The company was founded by Job Bearsley, a bacalhau (salted cod) trader in 1692. In 1744, his son Bartholomew became the first Englishman to buy a vineyard in the Douro valley, where port is produced. Except for a brief interregnum during the Napoleonic invasions (in which the farmhouse served as a field hospital for Wellington’s troops), Taylor’s has been producing port there every year. In 1836, the company gained a new partner, John Fladgate, a London wine merchant. In the 1920s, Taylor’s produced the first varietal ports. In the 1930s, it introduced the first white port, Taylor’s Chip Dry, an excellent aperitif, solo or with tonic (called a “Splash”). In 1958, Taylor’s became the first company to sell single estate ports, under their Quinta de Vargellas brand, named after the estate in Douro. That same year (which, by the way, yielded one of the very best vintages ever), the company merged with Fonseca, another established name in port. In 1970s, Taylor’s pioneered the LBVs (or late bottled vintages) a vintage port that requires no decanting, enabling the market for ruby ports (aged in the bottle) to expand considerably. In 2002, Taylor’s and Fonseca purchased Croft and Delaforce, two other well-respected port companies. You get the point — Taylor’s is a company with a lot of achievements under its belt.

Taylor’s wine lodge in Gaia is one of the best to visit and the only to possess an excellent restaurant with a great view of Porto. As soon as you step through the gates, you’ll find a secluded surrounding of immaculate gardens, stunning terraces with wonderful views across the river, and damp cellars where barrels age for decades, if not more. During your (free) tour, the guide will summarize the history of port and of the company itself in a lively and concise way. The tour is not limited to the wine cellars, covering also the craftsmanship involved in building the barrels, the vine growing process (which takes place up the Douro river), environmental concerns, and, of course, some off-the barrel tasting!

Afterwards, you can taste two wines for free — the white Chip Dry and a late bottled vintage (LBV). You can hang out in the library or, if the weather is pleasant, on the terrace, which oversees Porto and the river. There is, of course, a large wine store (to which no one will push you) where you will find all wines produced by the Taylor’s group at unbeatable prices. The staff is attentive but not pushy. They also have an ear for how knowledgeable you are in port and are willing to adjust their spiel to your level of interest, not the other way around. All in all, Taylor’s produces some of the finest vintage ports, and that same quality is reflected in the level of service you will find.

If you have time — and you should — have lunch at the Baron of Fladgate Restaurant in the premises. The dining room has a stunning view of Porto, and you can indulge in good Portuguese food accompanied by good table wines and followed by excellent ports. Your lunch will start with a chilled white dry port and an assortment of appetizers, including a few Portuguese cheeses. We love the traditional clam soup, as well as the several bacalhau dishes and other fish courses — black grouper broiled with onion and tomato and a grilled sea bass with lemon sauce. Desserts include all the major Portuguese staples, with lots of traditional conventual egg sweets. The table wines are up to the job but, of course, the stars are the ports that await you at the end. Make sure you book your table the moment you arrive for the tour. Service is attentive and the ambiance is great.

Price point: tastings of basic wines are free; more sophisticated wines by the glass from 3 euros; bottles from 10 euros. Lunch at the restaurant will cost you around 20 euros plus drinks.

Address: Rua do Choupelo 250, Gaia.

Website: http://www.taylor.pt/

Opening hours: open Monday through Friday from 10:00am till 6:00pm; same schedule on weekends during July and August.

Reservations: not required; call (+351) 22.374.2800.

Getting there: taxi highly recommended, should take 10-15 minutes from downtown Porto and cost you less than 5 euros. The section of Gaia where port lodges are located is made of narrow, steep, and winding streets — a nightmare for the typical American driver on any occasion — and for everyone else after the wine tasting.

Vinologia (vee-noo-loo-GEE-ah) is the best port-only wine bar in Porto — it matches the Solar do Vinho do Porto in terms of variety and beats it in terms of the enthusiasm and service. (OK, it is not as comfortable, but it makes up in liveliness what it lacks in plush.) Roy Hersh, an American wine critic who has covered port for a long time, has this to say: “If this was near my home, I’d be broke and homeless.” Owner Jean Philippe Duhard, originally from Bordeaux, settled in Porto in 1995 and became enamored of port wine. Five years later he opened this place, and has been doing all of us a favor ever since.

Located at the heart of the Ribeira neighborhood, Vinologia (a.k.a. La Maison des Porto — or the house of port in Jean Philippe’s native French) occupies an authentic eighteenth-century house. In it, you’ll find a tiny wine bar (25 guests max. at any time) as well as an excellent wine store devoted entirely to port. The decor is sober, mostly in brick, granite, and wood. Every nook and cranny in the place is filled with port bottles, port glassware, port books — all things port. Their slogan is “A glass of port, in the heart of Porto.”

As the name indicates — it stands for “wine-ology,” or the science of wine — the team at Vinologia takes their job pretty darn seriously. In fact, they don’t conceive of the place as a bar, more of a port wine school. And they’re well equipped to do so. Jean Philippe is a member of the Port Wine Institute’s confraria (brotherhood), an exclusive club to which only the most well-versed in port can aspire to belong. His son Gustavo possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of port, including minor producers and off vintages. And Cristophe, the Swiss bartender, is fluent in a handful of languages, making their mission of converting heathens into port-believers much easier. As you probably guess by now, service is attentive and enthusiastic.

Vinologia offers more than two hundred bottlings of port, which easily makes it the place with the widest variety of port in Porto. While the Solar do Vinho do Porto covers mostly the main producers, Vinologia specializes in small producers who rarely make it to the U.S. market. If you know little about port, this is a great place to catch the bug. If you already know a bit and would like to know more, then this is the place to develop a nuanced knowledge of the world of port and a real grasp of its intricacies.

You can try port by the glass, or you can go for one (or more…) of the flights on offer, from basic introductory stuff to top-notch wines. The prices are easy to follow — each wine of the same kind (dry white, ruby, tawny, 10-year old, 20-year old, 40-year old, LBV, vintage, colheita, etc.) has the same price. Whites are served with apricots and salted toasted almonds; rubies with prunes; and tawnies with chocolates and raisins. If you’re hungrier than that, Vinologia offers raisin bread, chocolate, nuts, and the king of Portuguese cheeses — Serra da Estrela (SEH-rah dah Esh-TREH-lah) — a raw sheep’s-milk cheese that makes a perfect accompaniment for port and is one of the best cheeses in the whole world.

In sum, Vinologia is an excellent spot for several stops during your stay in Porto. Take a break during the day and taste a three-glass flight. Go there after dinner and indulge in a longer tasting. If you’re staying at the Porto Pestana Carlton (our favorite hotel in town), the walk home is only one block downhill. Enjoy, and Godspeed!

Price point: ports by the glass from 1.5 euros; degustation flights from 6 euros. Prices in general are very reasonable for the quality of the ports served. Bottles of port are 10 euros and up.

Address: Rua S. Joao 46, Porto.

Website: http://www.lamaisondesporto.com/

Opening hours: open daily from 2:00pm till midnight.

Reservations: required only for groups of 10 or more; call (+351) 93.605.7340.

Getting there: if you are driving from downtown Porto, the easiest way of getting there is to take Rua Mouzinho da Silveira down to Praca do Infante. Park there in the underground parking lot. Once you’ve walked back up to the street level, face the river (which means turn your back to the red metal structure on the higher side of the square, the Mercado Ferreira Borges, an old market). Then walk to the lowest part of the square, and turn left. Vinologia is on the next crossing, at the beginning of the block that leads to the tunnel heading to the D. Luiz I bridge. If you’re not driving, walking from downtown should take you 10-15 minutes, and a taxi should take about 5 minutes.

The Solar do Vinho do Porto (So-LAR doo VEE-gno doo POR-too) is — on a par with Vinologia — one of our favorite places to enjoy port wine. It is a comfortable bar operated by the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto (Port and Douro wines Institute), the state agency that regulates the port wine industry. This means two things. First, on the upside, it is one of the very few places where service is both deeply knowledgeable on port and absolutely unbiased about which producers are best. Second, on the downside, it is not an “in” place; rather a quiet, old-fashioned wine bar where you focus on the wine. We think the pros more than compensate for the cons. Besides, the bar is installed right next to the Museum of Romanticism, in a lovely XIX century mansion perched on a slope overlooking the river — and there is outdoors seating when the weather is nice.

The Solar do Vinho do Porto has the widest and most consistently good selection of port available in town. Moreover, it has excellent selection for all price points, from no-frills tawnies and rubies to four-digit vintages and colheitas. Since it attracts many people willing to try out port and know a bit more about it, there’s always a good number of vintages and LBVs waiting to be poured any given day (these wines have to be consumed within a few days of opening the bottle, so that most places don’t have many choices at any given time).

The staff consists on the most knowledgeable port sommeliers you will ever find. These are the same people that judge wines in the mandatory blind tastings by an official state-appointed panel that precedes any decision on the part of producers to decide what to label (and how much to price) their port wine.

If you didn’t know, it’s not up to the producers to decide, for instance, what gets labeled a vintage, or an LBV (late bottled vintage), or a 10-year old blend. Producers submit to the Institute samples prepared by their in-house wine makers. The Institute organizes a blind tasting of those samples by a panel of experts and, based on the panel’s recommendation, issues a binding decision on whether the producer can indeed turn the wine in question into, say, a vintage, or whether it must settle for the less prestigious LBV label.

Contrary to what happens in the port wine cellars across the river (and in wineries around the world), the sommeliers here have no vested interest in pushing any particular brand on you. In fact, they have themselves selected the wines on offer at the Solar do Vinho do Porto. The process works as follows. Every year, port wine producers are invited to submit up to five wines for consideration to the Institute. These are tasted blindly, according to each category (ruby, tawny, 10-year old, 20-year old, 40-year old, LBV, vintage, colheita, etc.) and divided into price ranges. The tasting panel then selects up to three wines from each brand to sell at the Solar do Vinho do Porto. They are offered by the glass and also for sale, so you can satisfy your wine-shopping needs here too.

Besides port wine, the Solar do Vinho do Porto has very little on offer — as it should be. There is mineral water, a few options for kids, crackers to cleanse the palate between tastings, and an excellent Serra da Estrela, the king of Portuguese cheeses, served in two varieties — hard and soft.

The decor is a bit dated, but everything from the lighting to the sofas is very comfortable. The small garden is delightful and the view is excellent, extending from the port wine cellars to the river mouth.

Whenever we have foreign friends in town and want to introduce them to port wine, we head to the Solar do Vinho do Porto after dinner and ask the somellier to pick a good choice for one of each of the following: a ruby, an LBV, and a vintage (all wines aged in the bottle); plus a tawny, a 10-year old, a 20-year old, a 40-year old, and a good colheita, like a Krohn from the fifties or sixties, when they had were several good years (all wines aged in wooden casks). We place all he glasses on the table in two rows — ruby-type and tawny-type wines. Then we start with the least expensive ruby and pass the glass around, working our way up to the vintage. We pause for a bit and do the same with the tawny flight, workng our way up to the colheita. Then, if you want to punish yourself a bit, ask for a second glass of the cheaper wines and see how they suddenly seem much worse than they did before you tried out the better wines.

Price point: port wines by the glass 3 euros and up; 10 euros and up by the bottle.

Address: Quinta da Macieirinha - Rua de Entre Quintas 220, Porto.

Website: http://www.ivp.pt/

Opening hours: Monday through Thursday, 2:00pm to 8:00pm; Friday and Saturday, 2:00pm to midnight. Closed on Sundays and public holidays.

Reservations: not needed; call (+351) 22.609.4749.

Getting there: getting to the Solar do Vinho do Porto is tricky by car; getting back after a few glasses of port is even trickier, so we strongly recommend taking a taxi there. The staff will be glad to call a taxi for you on your way out — or you can climb the very steep street as a way of working all that port out of your system. Note that although there are signs point toward the Solar on the main streets, the way there is through narrow winding streets more appropriate for medieval ox carts than to twenty-first century highway drivers. If, however, you insist on driving, it should be easy to park the car right outside the Solar. From downtown Porto, go up Rua de Ceuta. Enter the tunnel, from which you will exit on the last exit, towards Rua D. Manuel II. Follow the street until you see a large gated garden on your left. Continue going down slowly, trying to get to the left lane. As the street ends you’ll see a bowl-upside-down shaped building on your left, inside the gated garden (it is the Palacio de Cristal, an exhibition center). Most of the traffic will turn right at the end of the street. Don’t follow them. Stop on the traffic light on the center of the street — your left lane — and when possible start going down the narrow cobbled stone street that is very slightly to your left — Rua de Vilar. Once in Rua de Vilar (cobbled stone), turn on the first street that will appear to your left. This is the very narrow Rua de Entre Quintas and after a few turns it starts going steeply down the slope. Just follow the street to the end — it has no way out. It literally ends at the gate of the Museum of Romanticism, through which you gain access to the Solar. Go through the gates and park right there. The Solar is to your left when you are facing the Museum house. If you’re not driving, a taxi should take 15 minutes from downtown.

There are several reasons why Portuguese wines (other than Port and Madeira) are not widely known on the international market. Small producers, a (now-undeserved) reputation for producing cheap wines, poor access to distribution channels, etc., all are difficult to solve. One isn’t. A small country like Portugal has more than 300 wine-producing grape varieties in use. But even those among these which are grown elsewhere and are thus household names around the world have specific obscure Portuguese names, preventing international consumers from understanding what they are drinking — and buying. To make matters worse, most grape varieties in Portugal have different names in different Portuguese regions. We looked hard (both on and off-line) for a good guide to Portuguese grape varieties, but found no comprehensive one. What follows is an attempt on our part to provide an online guide to Portuguese grape varieties. They are listed alphabetically. When a particular grape is known by a different name in another Portuguese wine-producing region, we list the name and indicate the region in brackets. When it is also known by another name in another international wine-producing region, we indicate it in square brackets.

Alvarinho (Minho, vinho verde) Albarino [Galicia, vino verde] – Alvarinho is a white grape variety grown in the Northwest part of Iberia — both in Portugal and Spain. Production in Portugal is centered on the town of Moncao, the capital of the vinho verde country. In Galicia, the region of Spain to the North of Portugal, this grape is known as Albarino. Alvarinho grapes have thick skins, which help them withstand the particularly damp climate. They are grown overhead, capturing less of the heat refracted by the ground, and resulting in wines high in acidity and low in alcohol (between 9 and 11%). Alvarinho results in flavorful wines, the top of the vinho verde range. The Portuguese wine market was for a long time blend-oriented, and Alvarinho was one of the first grape varieties to appear on the label of Portuguese varietal wines.

Alvarelhão (Douro / Dão) – Alverelhão is used in full-bodied red, rosés, and Port-wine blends.

Arinto (Bucelas / Ribatejo / Sado) / Pederna (Minho, vinho verde) – Arinto is the mainstay of the Bucelas wine region. It is a white grape variety, and must constitute at least 75% of Bucelas blends. Arinto is also grown in other regions of Portugal, including Ribatejo and Terras do Sado. Arinto is also used in vinho verde blends under the name of Pederna. It has high acidity, yielding wines with a strong structure, which tend to develop a citrus nose with age.

Baga / Tinta Bairrada / Poeirinha (Bairrada / Dão / Ribatejo) – Baga dominates the Bairrada region, also playing important roles in the Dao and Ribatejo regions, where it is called Tinta Bairrada and Poeirinha. Baga grapes have thick skins and yield wines high in tannins and acidity. Baga vines are prone to rotting, leading producers to harvest them early in the season, before the grapes are fully ripe. As a result, Baga-based blends tend to be high in acidity and somewhat astringent. Mateus Rose, the widest known Portuguese wine, is based on Baga.

Bastardo (Douro) / Cabernet Gros [Australia] / Trousseau / Tressot [Chablis] – Bastardo is a red grape used in Portuguese port wine as well as, to a lesser extent, table wines from the Douro region. It is considered an inferior port-wine grape, used in low-end rubies and tawnies.

Bical (Bairrada) / Borrado das Moscas (Dão) – Produced mostly in Bairrada and Dão (where it is called Borrado das Moscas), Bical is a white grape variety that yields wines with high acidity. It is often used in sparkling-wines blends, for which the Bairrada region in known in the Portuguese domestic wine market.

Bual (Madeira) — Bual (or Boal) is used in Madeira wines, designating one of the four types of Madeira wine (the other three are Cerceal, Malvasia, and Verdelho). These are fortified wines produced in the Madeira Island. In fact, Bual designates at least four wine-producing grapes: Codega, Dõna Branco, Rabigato, and Semillon. Bual vines can also be found on the Portuguese mainland and even in Spain, where i is used in the production of sherry and other fortified wines.

Castelão Francês / Periquita (Ribatejo) / João de Santarém (Ribatejo) / Mortagua (Estremadura) / Trincadeira Preta (Sado / Alentejo) – Castelão Francês is planted in most Southern Portuguese wine regions. It produces dark-skinned grapes and yields fruity wines that are usually consumed young.

Cerceal (Madeira) – Cerceal (Sercial in English) is used in Madeira wines, designating the driest of the four types of Madeira wine (the other three are Bual, Malvasia, and Verdelho). As is the case with Bual, Cerceal designates several white grape varieties. Its plantation area has been in decline. Cercel is a late-ripening variety, which yields wines high in both acidity and alcohol. It is the longest-lasting variety of Madeira wine, often aging for more than a century.

Loureiro (Minho, vinho verde) Lourerira [Rias Baixas] – Loureiro means laurel in Portuguese. This white grape variety has a strong laurel scent, and is used both to produce vinho verde in Northern Portugal and, increasingly, as Lourerira in Spanish Rias Baixas. Typically, it features in blends with Trajadura (Treixadura in Spain), but can also be found easily as a varietal wine. Its low alcohol content makes it very popular as a basis for Summer wines to sip during the day.

Malvasia / Malmsey (Madeira) – Malvasia (also known as Malvazia or Malmsey) is a group of wine grape varieties grown in Italy (including Sicily, Lipari, and Sardinia), Corsica, the Iberian Peninsula, the Canary Islands, the island of Madeira, California, and Australia. These grapes are used to produce white (and more rarely red) table wines, dessert wines, and fortified wines of the same name, or are sometimes used as part of a blend of grapes, such as in Vin Santo. Grape varieties in this family include Malvasia Bianca, Malvasia Negra, and a number of other varieties. In the past, the names “Malvasia” and “Malmsey” have been used interchangeably. Presently, however, “Malvasia” generally refers to unfortified white table or desert wines produced from this grape, while “Malmsey” refers to a sweet variety of Madeira wine. Further confusion resulted from the fact that, in the past, the term “Malmsey” referred to any very sweet Madeira wine, regardless of the grape variety from which it was made. This was an outcome of the devastation of Madeiran vineyards by phylloxera in the late 19th century, after which, production of Malvasia and other “noble grape” varieties on Madeira was greatly reduced for the next century. As a result, most non-vintage-dated “Malmsey” was made from the widely grown Tinta Negra Mole or even from fox grape varieties. This changed when Portugal entered the European Union in 1986; EU regulations required that any wine bearing the name “Malmsey” be made with at least 85% Malvasia grapes. Even further confusion results from the fact that vintage-dated Malmseys are often labeled “Malvasia” or “Malvazia”, probably because the relatively rare vintage Malvasias were always made with Malvasia grapes even when most non-vintage “Malmsey” was being made from lesser varieties. The Malvasia grape is of Greek origin, but there is some controversy over exactly where it originated and what grape varieties were its ancestors. Although Malvasia was produced mainly in Greece until the 15th century, the name “Malvasia” is Italian. Malvasia was probably brought to Italy (from where it spread to the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic islands) by the Venetians, who from the 13th to the 17th centuries controlled many of the Greek islands. The name “Malvasia” is thought to derive from Monemvasia, a Venetian fortress on the coast of Laconia, known in Italian as “Malvasia”. A competing theory holds that the name is derived from the district of Malevizi, near the city of Heraklion (known to the Venetians as Candia) on Crete.

Tinta Amarela / Trincadeira / Espadeira (Douro) – Indigenous to Portugal, Tinta Amarela used to be the most popular of the port varietals, though it is less planted today. The tight bunches and thin skin of the grapes makes the berries susceptible to rot and disease, and particularly to powdery mildew, a vulnerability which has contributed to its decline in popularity. Planting in unfertile, sandy soils helps the vine avoid disease. Tinta Amarela is moderately high in yield, and when the fruit nears maturity there is a very small window for harvest between under ripeness and over ripeness. The varietal produces very well structured wines which are not particularly fruity but are deeply colored, with intensely perfumed aromas suggestive of tea and excellent depth. Tinta Amarela represents 6% of the vines planted in the Douro.

Tinta Barroca (Douro) – Cultivated in the Douro Valley only for the last century, Tinta Barroca is one of the region’s most recent varieties. This highly vigorous, robust vine, though among the finest for the production of port, must be sited in cool conditions on north- or east-facing slopes at relatively high altitudes. Its loosely knit clusters, which allow for air circulation, make it resistant to rot, though it is sensitive to drought. The vines yield ample quantities of grapes of very high sugar content, which produce wines of pronounced floral, rather than fruit, character, good structure and firm, ripe tannins. Tinta Barroca is planted in 10% of the region’s vineyards, the third most prevalent vine.

Tinta Cão (Douro) – Indigenous to Portugal, Tinta Cão is one of the oldest Douro varieties, cultivated there since the 16th century and possibly earlier. One of the highest quality port varietals, the vines produce tiny, compact bunches of small berries of low yield, which has led to its decline as new plantings replace old. Of moderately high vigor, it thrives in cooler areas, and the thick skin of the berries contributes to its resistance to disease. The vine’s name means “red dog,” a grape that bites when not ripe, and young Tinta Cão wines, even from optimally ripe grapes, are tough and acidic. Tinta Cão contributes longevity and an exceptional elegance to the port blend which emerges with age. Tinta Cão represents less than 1% of plantings in the Douro Valley.

Tinta Roriz (Douro) / Aragonez (Alentejo) / Tempranillo [Spain] / Valdepeñas [California] – The only classic variety of the Douro not indigenous to Portugal, Tinta Roriz is known in Spain, its birthplace, as Tempranillo. The name, from “temprana,” or “early,” refers to its trait of ripening early. Of the top varietals, Tinta Roriz is the most variable in in quality. High in vigor, moderate in productivity and highly resistant to heat and aridity, it grows best on hot, dry south-facing schist slopes, away from water, with shelter from wind. Such siting helps curb the vine’s vigor and also helps it avoid rot, to which it is susceptible. The Tinta Roriz produces thick-skinned, deeply-colored grapes not too high in acidity which yield masculine wines of firm tannic structure, excellent complexity and distinctive resiny fragrance. It constitutes 12% of plantings in the Douro Valley, the second most prevalent vine.

Touriga Francesa / Touriga Franca / Tinta da Barca (Douro) – Touriga Francesa grape is an early maturing variety that grows in average-sized clusters. Also indigenous to Portugal, the Touriga Francesa is related to the Touriga Nacional vine, though more fragile. The wines these two varieties yield are similar in character, but Touriga Francesa is of slightly lesser concentration and color and shows greater suppleness and elegance. Of moderate vigor and low productivity, it thrives in the hot soils of the Douro Valley’s lower, relatively fertile, slopes where it is protected from wind. Though the grapes are thick-skinned the bunches are delicate, and the fruit may not mature fully in very dry years if planted in arid soils. Very high in tannin and extremely highly scented, it is an important contributor of structure and balance. It shows an intense perfume of fresh red fruit, earth and flowers, and its overt fruitiness is repeated on the palate, preserving a marked grape quality in the wine as it ages. At 21%, it is the most widely planted of the port producing region’s vines.

Touriga Nacional / Touriga Macho / Preto Mortágua (Douro / Dão) – Indigenous to Portugal, Touriga Nacional is the finest and most complete grape for producing vintage port. The vine is vigorous, producing a lot of foliage and fewer bunches of grapes. The vines bear tight clusters of thick-skinned, concentrated, tiny blue-black berries which yield only about nine to ten ounces of grapes (compared to roughly 4.4 pounds) per vine. To curb its vigor, it is best planted in shallow, stony schist soil high on the slope. Grown for quality rather than quantity, Touriga Nacional produces wine with finesse, structure, body and warmth, and yields dark, concentrated, massively tannic and aromatic wines, with an intense black fruit fragrance overlying notes of flowers and tea. It ages to show the complex aromas typically found in mature vintage port. It constitutes a small percentage in the blend of most port wines and due to its low productiviey accounts for only 2% of the Douro Valley’s vines.

Verdelho (Madeira) – Verdelho is a white grape grown throughout Portugal, though most associated with the island of Madeira, and also gives its name to one of the four main types of Madeira wine. The grape has traditionally been one of the most popular grapes planted on the small island of Madeira since vines were first planted there in the 15th century. It was however badly affected by the Phylloxera plague and the number of vines has decreased greatly in the century since then. However, since 1993 any Madeira wine labelled as Verdelho must contain at least 85 percent of the grape, which wasn’t previously the case. The variety of Madeira wine known as Verdelho lies between those of Sercial and Bual in style, being richer than Bual but not as dry as Sercial. The variety is known for its high acidity when aged, but if drunk young generally possesses more flavour than the other Madeira’s. The grape is also grown in the Douro valley where it is known as Gouveio and used in white port. It is also called Godello and Verdello in the rare occasions that it is grown in Spain. The grape has also found some success in the vineyards of Australia. This grape should not be confused with Verdelho Tinto, a red grape also grown in Madeira.