Marquis Wine Cellars

Wine Shop

Port

Port in the strictest definition is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties. Fortified wines in the style of port are also produced outside Portugal, most notably in Australia, South Africa, Canada, India, Argentina, and the United States. Under European Union guidelines, only the product from Portugal may be labeled as port or Porto.
Products (Total Items: 7)
Quinta de la Rosa Tawny 10 Year Old 500ml
$40.00    Buy
Graham 6 Grape Port 750ml
$32.00    Buy
Dows LBV 2005 Port 750ml
$28.00    Buy
Fonseca Bin 27 Vintage Character N/V 750ml
$27.00    Buy
Niepoort 2003 Vintage Port 750ml
$100.00    Buy
Quinta do Vale D. Maria 2003 Vintage Port 750ml
$70.00    Buy
Jose Maria da Fonseca 2003 Vintage Port 750ml
$65.00    Buy
   

About Ports

There are several categories of port commonly seen in our market:

Tawny Port aged in barrels for a number of years and indicated on the bottle IE Taylors 10 year old tawny port, Grahams 40 year old.

Ruby Port aged a short time in barrel and blended from multiple vintages. These ports are bottled young and do not improve with age (ie. Fonseca Bin 27).

Late Bottle Vintage Port, often called LBV for short, was originally wine that had been destined for bottling as vintage port, but because of lack of demand was left in the barrel for longer than had been planned. Over time it has become two distinct styles of wine, both of them bottled between four and six years after the vintage, but one style is fined and filtered before bottling, while the other is not. If the bottle has a proper cork in it can improve with some age. If it has what we call a T top cork (short cork with a piece of plastic on top), it is filtered and will not improve Dow 2006 LBV in a current example of the T top version.

Vintage port is made entirely from the grapes of a declared vintage year and accounts for about two percent of overall port production. Not every year is declared a vintage in the Douro. The decision on whether to declare a vintage is made in the spring of the second year following the harvest. The decision to declare a vintage is made by each individual port house. Taylors 1994 and Croft 1994 are examples of vintage port. These wines are the pinnacle of port production. They can and should be aged 20 or more years before opening to really enjoy them at their best.