When I was a young girl first starting to read period novels, I was always intrigued at the British practice of the men retiring to their port after dinner leaving the women to chit-chat amongst themselves. It wasn’t until decades later that I would be introduced to port. Speedy did that. He came home with a bottle of port one day wondering why it was more expensive than other red wines.
Port is not just a red wine. Port originates from Portugal and is a fortified red wine. Fortified? Yes, with brandy — to stop fermentation, to allow residual sugar and to boost alcohol content. The bottle of Dow’s fine tawny port in the photo contained 19% alcohol — way, way higher than the usual 11% to 13% alcohol content of most red wines.
We love the sweetness of port (personally, I am not a fan of dry wines) but because port is not inexpensive, we reserve them for special occasions. A special occasion took place a couple of days ago, Speedy opened a bottle of port (after two bottles of red wine) and it was gone even before dinner was served.
last month i had a chance of drinking a very nice port from my father in law’s collection. it was delicious and not too strong for an after dinner drink. but yeah, it can’t be an everyday after dinner drink like red wine because it is expensive. thanks for sharing this.
You know, I think we can be a wine producing country. Too bad no one really seems serious in developing the concept. I’ve tried local strawberry and mango wines but the quality isn’t any good. YET.
love to read your blog…travel a lot to ph lately…trying to understand the country and people…thank you…you are fun to read
Lived here all my life and I’m still trying to understand the people too.
ha-ha-ha, very true…lived in europe and now in the states…