Porto

Port is fortified wine from the Douro: during fermentation, wine spirit is added, which stops the fermentation and leaves part of the grape sugar in the wine. What happens next determines the style. Tawny ages for years in small casks and turns nutty and tawny-coloured. Colheita is a tawny from a single harvest. Vintage ages in bottle and needs decades. For an open bottle: a tawny keeps for weeks to months, a vintage for days. We prefer to buy from houses that make their port themselves rather than buying it in.