Claudia Romeo: Hello from the Douro Valley in Portugal,
where we're going to find out how port wine is made.
Today we're going to visit Taylor's,
which is one of the top wine houses
here in Portugal producing port wine.
Port is a very special wine, not only because,
unlike other wines, it's very sweet,
but also because it retains a lot of the human element.
For example, we are going to see how traditional
foot treading is done, which is a very important
and traditional part of the making of port wine
and is very much done by hand. Or, we should say, by foot.
So, why is this method still being used?
And how did this contribute to making port
one of the most popular wines in the world?
David Guimaraens: Port wine is a fortified wine.
And what differentiates port from a normal wine
is that we will take the grapes,
and if you were to make a red wine from these grapes,
you would let all of your sugar be transformed
into alcohol, and the final alcohol of the wine
is the result of the initial sugar in the grape.
In a port wine, we will take the same grapes,
start fermenting, and when half of the sugar
has been converted to alcohol, we will run off the juice.
And we will add a neutral grape spirit,
which will kill the yeast.
So the sweetness in the glass of port
is the natural sugar from the grape.
And the wine alcohol, the spirit that we use,
is there to raise your port to an alcohol level of 20%,
where it is stable and has the ability to age.
And that's what differentiates port
as a wine style to other wines.
Claudia: Although port wine bears the name
of the seaport city of Porto,
it is actually in the steep hillsides of the Douro Valley
in northern Portugal that it has been made for centuries.
The region was legally demarcated
by the Portuguese government in 1756,
meaning that authentic port can only be made here.
David: The Douro Valley is characterized
for being a region of mountain viticulture in hot climate.
The summer temperatures are very high.
We get up to 40 degrees centigrade on a regular basis.
And our winters are cold.
We have low rainfall, so it's very arid.
And it is these conditions that leads to
the vineyards of the grapes we produce
producing naturally high sugar levels
and a lot of concentration of color.
Most of them are local, indigenous grape varieties.
Names like Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinto Cão.
These are varieties which are
naturally very drought-resistant
and resist to these very, very tough conditions.
Claudia: Wines from the Douro Valley used to be
transported in barrels on boats
through the Douro River all the way to Porto,
where they would eventually sail to the rest of Europe,
in particular to England, which Portugal
has held strong trading links with since the 14th century.
Adrian Bridge: Really, the big break, if you like,
for Port happened where because Britain,
which was the main importing market,
had, through various conflicts with
intercontinental Europe, particularly France,
found that it was putting high taxes on French wine.
So wines from Portugal were being exported to the UK.
They became very popular.
And then of course as the UK itself became a nation
that was expanding out across the world with its empire,
it took the habit of drinking port with it
to many corners of the world.
Claudia: Taylor's is one of the founding port houses,
established in 1692.
It owns 500 hectares of vineyards in the Douro Valley.
We visited Quinta de Vargellas, one of the company's most
prestigious estates and home to some of its finest ports.
Every September, a group of grape pickers
from the villages of the Douro Valley
is recruited to do the harvest.
They are paid, fed, and get accommodation at the Quinta.
The pickers start working at 8 a.m. in the vines,
where they pick grapes by hand.
At sunset, they move indoors to press the grapes by foot.
David: These are what we call a lagar,
which is a granite fermenter.
This is where we do the traditional method
of foot treading to produce our port.
One of the beauties of foot treading
and using this very simple process
is that your foot is doing an intense action
of taking the color out of the skins,
but at the same time it's very soft.
So you extract what's good,
and you leave behind what is more aggressive.
And that is so difficult to replicate
in any mechanical means.
And that's why we continue to use it.
Claudia: The treaders move in unison and in silence,
except for the marcador, who marks the time.
After two hours, the "Canção da Liberdade,"
or "Song of Freedom,"
marks the beginning of the second stage.
[singing]
Treaders now move freely to the sound of music,
which goes on for another few hours.
Less labor-intensive fermentation techniques
have been invented, like these fermentation tanks
that replicate the action of foot treading.
But to make the finest ports, like vintages,
the traditional method is still preferred.
After treading, the wine stays in the lagars
for two or three days to ferment.
Wooden plungers are used to keep the grape skins
in constant contact with the extracted juice.
When half of the natural sugar of the grape
has fermented and turned into alcohol,
the juice is drawn out and fortified
with a natural grape spirit,
which raises the alcohol level to 20%.
At this stage, the winemakers don't know yet
which style of port the wine is going to be.
It will be decided in January after the wine
has rested for six months in wooden vats.
The winemakers will then taste it,
and, depending on the chosen style,
the wine will age differently
in the company's cellars in Porto.
Adrian: One of the most exciting things about port
is that from the same vineyards
you can actually produce incredibly different styles.
So if you age it in large wooden vats,
vats with 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 liters,
you have this large volume of liquid,
very little surface area of wood.
And you retain all this big, fresh, berry fruit flavors.
The black currant, the blackberries.
If you put it in a small cask, 660 liters in size,
you have a large surface area of wood
and very little volume of wine.
And so as a result what happens is evaporation;
the wines concentrate down, they lose color into the wood,
and you end up with aged tawnies.
But our most premium style of port is vintage port.
And that's one that we put in a bottle after two years,
and it lives the rest of its life in a bottle.
And those are some of the longest-lived
and some of the most fantastic wines in the world.
So, from the same vineyard, the same making process,
the aging taking place here in Porto
creates these incredibly interesting styles.
Claudia: Port international trade history,
in particular with the British Empire,
has led to all the countries producing port-style wines.
And while regulations ensure that no other wine
is labeled as port within the European Union,
it may not be the case in other countries, like the US.
So how do you spot authentic port from the Douro Valley?
Look for the seal either around the neck
or on the back of the bottle,
which represents port's official certifying body.
David: Can we give them music? Claudia: Yes, yes we can.