Port Wine though highly appreciated in Portugal was not known to the outside world till the 17th century. Until then wines from France ruled the taste and palates of the British. By the end of the 17th century British French relations had deteriorated to the extent that the British government decided to impose heavy import duties on French wines. The quest for a suitable substitute for the French wines was found in the the wines from the Douro valley in Portugal which suited the British taste just as well.

Over the next century thousands of casks of Douro wine found their way regularly to Britain. To stop the fermentation process to suit its long journey to Britain the wine was being fortified with brandy producing a naturally sweet wine that travelled very well. The name given to this wine was Port after the city of Oporto, the port in the Douro valley area, the only place to which this wine production is restricted even to date.

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that followed made French wines almost unobtainable leading to British wine merchants migrating to Portugal and establishing famous port houses although others like the Irish, Danish, Dutch, and Germans were also involved in the industry.

Legally Port wine can only be produced in the Douro region within prescribed boundaries set by the Portuguese government, making Oporto the center of much of the world’s production.

The wine growing area consists of two segments; the Baixo, or lower area, flat and easier to cultivate but producing a lower quality of wine and the Cima, or upper area, steep and rugged, producing a lower quantity but a higher quality of wine.

car hire porto airport is a famously rich and delicious drink with a wide variety of styles to suit just about every palate, like the very popular Ruby port, which is matured for around three years in the cask and then bottled, Vintage Port the wine of a single year, which is bottled between 22 and 31 months after the harvest and then matures in the bottle for a minimum of ten years, White port is made only from white grapes, Tawny port is matured in wood and assumes a brown tawny color.

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