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Port: History

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

Port originates from 17th-century trade wars between the English and the French. For a time, imports of French wines into England were prohibited, and then, in 1693, William III imposed punitive levels of taxation which drove English wine merchants to Portugal, a country with whom the English had always shared good relations. At first they settled on the northern coast but, finding the wines too thin and astringent (see vinho verde), they travelled inland along the river Douro. Here merchants found wines that were the opposite of those they had left behind on the coast. Fast and furious fermentation at high temperatures produced dark, astringent red wines that quickly earned them the name ‘blackstrap’ in London. In a determined effort to make sure that these wines arrived in good condition, merchants would add a measure of brandy to stabilize them before shipment.

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