Port

Fortification also appears to have come to the Douro Valley of Portugal during the first half of the eighteenth century. By 1800 the new sweet red port wines, typically with an alcohol content of 18 to 20 percent and 8 to10 percent grape sweetness, gradually replaced the region’s previous style of more-or-less dry, full-bodied red in the main export market to England. Most of the region’s wines then were like today’s tawny ports—sweet, fortified port wines matured for between a few years and several decades in cellars located in the Oporto suburb of Villa Nova de Gaia, the home of the main port houses.