A Primer on Port

Many years ago, probably at a winery in California that was trying something new, I was introduced to port wine – usually just called port.

Port is a sweet dessert wine with a high alcohol content. Relatedly, it is responsibly served in a small glass to help you keep your wits about you. Traditionally made from red wine grapes, port is like Champagne – in order to call it port, it has to come from Portugal, namely the Douro Valley. Although Portugal makes regular wine, too (much to my surprise; I truly had no idea!), I have long wanted to visit Portugal to learn more about my favorite way to end a meal. Here’s what I learned!

• The Douro River Valley is about 2 hours east of Porto and is home to 166 different varieties of wine grapes, most of which eventually become port. The Douro River starts in Spain where it is known as the Duero River – where we began our trip a couple of weeks ago. In Spain, most of the grapes grown along this river are Tempranillo grapes which are turned into regular (not port) wine.

I just can't get over this view!

• Ports are not made from specific varieties of grapes. Instead, they are made from a mishmash of red grapes grown in the Douro Valley. Over half of the 150+ different grape varieties in the Douro Valley are red. Which ones are in your bottle of port is a delicious mystery.

I was entranced by how the vineyards crawled over
every hill and ravine. Years ago, I thought all European
vineyards looked like this but I had never seen
it until Portugal!

• As with regular wine, not every year’s grape harvest is a winner. Unlike regular wine, though, if it’s not a stellar year for port, the grapes will be pressed into juice, aged, and will be blended with wine from other years to make a non-vintage port later on. But those years that are awesome? Those years – decreed by the Spanish alcohol bigwigs 2 years after the harvest – are designated as Vintage years. Ports made those years are made only using grapes from that year and the year is proudly printed on the bottle. Generally speaking, vintage ports are considered better and fancier and are more expensive than non-vintage ports.
  
  
• Since it takes a while for port wine potential to reveal itself, port makers let their wine hang out for a couple of years before they decide – based on Bigwig proclamations – if their wine will become ruby port, vintage port, or tawny port (more on that in a moment).

Speaking of hanging out...

• The key thing that differentiates port from regular wine is that the fermentation of port is stopped quickly – typically after only a couple of days – so that the sugar content is kept high. Fermentation is stopped by adding alcohol (elegantly translated as “spirit water”) to the grape juice. The extra alcohol kills the yeast and stops fermentation. This also increases the alcohol content of port. Whereas your typical red wine might have 12-14% alcohol, port has 19-21%. Yee haw! Sip that little glass slowly!

The grapes in the Douro Valley are
hand-picked. This is why. The hills
are STEEP and the vineyards are
terraced. The difficulty accessing
the vines is one of the reasons ports
can be expensive.

• There are several main types of port. They all start the same; the difference is how/if they are blended and how they are aged. Ruby port is young, lower quality, and is aged 2-7 years in stainless steel or concrete before being bottled. LBV – which stands for Late Bottle Vintage – is a cheaper, accessible port that is produced every year regardless of the quality of the grapes. It will have the year on the label but it is NOT a vintage port. LBV is typically aged 4-6 years in large wood barrels. Vintage port is port from one year that has been deemed special and worthy by the aforementioned bigwigs. Vintage ports are typically aged up to 3 years in stainless steel or wood barrels but can continue aging in the bottle for decades (like 80+ years). Tawny ports are aged in smaller barrels for up to three years before bottling. This allows them to have more contact with wood, giving tawny ports a more caramelly and nutty and brown sugary flavor than the fruity, black jamminess of vintage or LBVs.

Three different Vintage Ports.
At the end, I asked for a taste of their
20-year-old tawny. It won!

• The barrels that port is aged in are OLD. Like over 100 years old. They stay in good shape because the extra sugar in the fortified wine keeps the wood solid.

Such a different approach to barrels 
than wine making. Port makers use
barrels forevvvvvver!

• Vintage ports are delicate like Champagne in that they must be consumed within 24 hours after opening the bottle because they quickly go flat. They also need to be decanted. Non-vintage ports don’t need as much special handling. They can age in the bottle for 5-6 years and can keep in the fridge for 4-5 months after opening. Tawny ports, on the other hand, can last for up to a year after opening the bottle if you keep it chilled in the fridge. A fast and easy trick: if the bottle of port you are opening has a regular cork in it, drink it quickly. If instead the bottle has a T-cork in it, it can last a while.

Snagged off the interwebs: a t-cork
(or T-Cap Cork if you want to be official)

• There’s a white port called Chip Dry that is mostly available only in Portugal, Spain, and England. It is made from white grapes and is aged for up to 3 years before being bottled. It is dry and citrusy and is being marketed to younger people to try to get them drinking port (port is commonly considered an “old people’s drink” in Portugal). The hip way to drink Chip Dry is with tonic water, soda water, and a sprig of mint. I tried a “port tonic” and it was pretty dang tasty, even though I’m not sure white-haired 58-year-olds are supposed to be drinking it. I’m a fan of tonic water, so I am going to find a dry white wine at home to try to replicate the refreshing cocktail of the Portuguese Millennials.

L to R: Chip Dry, LVB from 2020,
Vintage Port from 2018, 20-Year-Old Tawny

Speaking of Portuguese Millennials:
our lunch entertainment one day was
a gaggle of young women eventually
celebrating a birthday but first, sooooo
many poses for the camera! 
Click here for an entertaining video!

• One company is also making a Rose port. It is a gorgeous dark pink/fuchsia color. It is sweet and tastes a bit like cherry or strawberry Kool-Aid. It was fun to try but I’m not sad its availability is mostly limited to northern Portugal.

Isn't that pretty?? Pretty much tastes
like it looks.

• Interestingly, the older the tawny port, the LIGHTER the color. Usually, as wines age they get more brown, not less brown. Go figure!

Not the best photo to illustrate my point, but at
least you can see the beautiful amber color of
the tawny ports.

• After trying all sorts of ports (one day we tried 10…), I have concluded I prefer tawny ports, typically 20-year tawnys. At dinner in Lisbon, we ordered a glass of 1974 tawny port that blew us both away and did amazing things with a chocolate torte. For red/ruby ports, I seem to like older Vintage ports that are at least 25 years old. Probably because they tend to not be quite so fruity as they age. 

This was NOT the 10-port day.
No, this was after a food-and-wine
tour that left us not needing more of
either, and yet...

Olá Portugal!

We just finished three full days in Porto, Portugal which also included a day trip to nearby Douro Valley. The Douro is where soooo many grapes are grown and eventually turned into port. But that’s another blog post coming very soon.

The weather has been fantastic! It's nice to be
back on the coast, too. Woodhaven isn't super
close to the ocean, but it's close enough to get
marine influences in our air and weather.
I forget how much my body and spirit like
being near the water.

Porto is – as you might deduce – a port-side town. Strategically positioned in northern Portugal where the Douro River empties into the Atlantic, the city dating back to Roman times has become quite the tourist destination in the last decade or so. Porto comes complete with scenic bridges, river boats, and a gondola ride over the river like you find at county fairs. Sadly, we never had time to take a glide. It looked like a wonderfully romantic and unique way to take in the beautiful vistas.

Porto is surprisingly hilly!

Lots of lovely spots to grab a snack.

We later learned that J.K. Rowling of
Harry Potter fame lived in Porto when
she first started writing her books. 
We're pretty sure the winged
lion statues in this fountain inspired
Gryffindor.

Pretty architecture that sort of looked like
Spanish Victorian, if that's a thing.

The inside of a store called "O Mundo Fantastico
da Sardinha Portuguesa" aka "The Fantastic
World of Portuguese Sardines" – for all your
sardine needs. I had none. Ewwww.

The hilly city of about 250,000 residents (the metro is about 1 million) sits on the north side of the river. We stayed in a hotel on the south side, in a small town called Gaia. It provided easy walks to port houses and also offered stunning views of Porto. Porto is old and occasionally steep, with narrow, bumpy cobblestone streets, palm and eucalyptus and pine trees living together harmoniously, and lots of red tiled roofs topping light-colored buildings. It is so pretty! And sort of magical.

There is a foot bridge at the bottom which we
never got around to walking across. Also,
locals gather nightly on the top bridge to watch
the sunset. That makes my heart so happy!

The bridge is to the right, the Atlantic Ocean is
to the left. A few of the blobs that look like
boats are actually gondola cars.

We spent one day learning all about port. Another day was spent in Old Porto, eating and drinking our way through the town with a local guide. The third day was spent leisurely cruising down the Douro River about 2 hours upstream, watching the vineyards reveal themselves as the first rain of our trip slowly gave way to sunny humidity.

The Douro River Valley

Along the way, we got to have a mind-blowing dinner. The food and drink were quite tasty. However, what made my head explode was that we enjoyed it with friends. In Portugal. What?!

Teresa and I worked together a lifetime ago at a Really Big Oil Company in San Francisco. We became fast friends and stayed in touch as our lives and careers took different paths. For several years – after we moved to Woodhaven and Teresa and her family moved to Idaho – we met annually in Walla Walla, Washington to enjoy wine weekends. They were always filled with laughter, authenticity, and great food and drink.

A couple of years ago, as their daughter was preparing to launch from college, Teresa and Jack started to put into action a long-held dream to live abroad. With Portuguese roots, it didn’t take the Abbotts long to figure out where to graft their American roots onto old stock. Now living an easy Uber ride north of Porto, Teresa and Jack motored down to Porto and joined us for a lovely dinner overlooking the Douro River. I’m still utterly amazed. It was soul-warmingly familiar and stunningly unexpected to catch up with dear friends over a meal in Portugal. A huge highlight!!

Never in a million years would I have predicted
this photo when I first met Teresa in a San Francisco
conference room in the mid-1990s!

With much prodding from fascinated friends, Teresa
agreed to start a blog about their adventures moving
to Portugal. Check it out here!

As I said, the dinner was tasty. Honestly, it had a lot to do with me ordering a very unPortuguese pumpkin risotto. I tried so hard to enjoy local Portuguese cuisine. I don’t normally consider myself a picky eater, but I just couldn’t find anything to get excited about food-wise. Once a very poor country living under a dictatorship (until 1974), Portuguese people have incorporated all of the pig “from snout to tail” into their daily diet. Plus a fascination with sardines. And salting cod like movie theater popcorn. Rob asked me if I could live in Porto. As lovely as the city and people are, I would pretty much starve and mope around dreaming of fresh salads and spices.

Salty cod with chickpeas

Tasty sausages and a steak tartare thing.

Street food! So much bacon. If I lived
in Portugal, I would survive on bacon.

Much to our monolingual relief, Rob and I have had absolutely no issues getting around without speaking Portuguese or even Spanish. I learned to say “thank you" (obrigada for female speakers; obrigado for male speakers), but otherwise I just listened to Portuguese around me and was grateful when I was correctly sized up as an English-speaker and the language was graciously switched. 

Portuguese spoken in Portugal is a fascinating language. It’s not Spanish. And it’s different than the Portuguese spoken in Brazil. Seeing it written, homeland Portuguese looks like Spanish that is written in puffy paint. It has lots of round letters and includes lots of squiggly accents and tails. To listen to it, Portuguese sounds like a weird mashup of Spanish and Russian, with lots of soft “shhh” sounds and words that seem to run into each other.

As I do, I have spent a lot of the past few weeks observing (or staring at) the world around me from behind the safety of my sunglasses. Here are a few things I have noticed:

• Spanish and Portuguese people do not carry around their drinks. No water bottles, no toddler-sized Stanleys, no bespoke coffees in Venti cups. And yet somehow, they all appear suitably hydrated. While white sneakers used to be the tell-tale sign of an American tourist, I’m starting to wonder if our emotional support water bottles are now the beacons of Americanism.
  
  
• Tattoos are not really a thing. Nor are body piercings. Coming from Portland, the folks on the Iberian Peninsula look naked and remarkably untouched.
  
  
• Similarly, very few people color their hair unnatural colors. The only people I have seen with purple, pink, blue, green, or Raggedy Ann red hair have been women in their 70s who have clearly reached the age of not caring what anyone thinks.
  
  
• North Face is THE brand of travelers and outdoorsy people here.
  
  

• Portuguese women are more about hats and less about scarves.
  
  
• Leggings as public attire is definitely an American thing.
  
  
• Smoking is super common, even in outdoor restaurants. Vaping is very popular, too, especially among 30-something women.                                                                                       

Something else I observed:
a street musician in Porto using
chickens (sitting on his knees)
as musical accompaniments.
Click here for a video!

Rob and I are currently on a train zooming three hours south to Lisbon. We will spend tomorrow being tourists and then gawdawful early the next morning, we start our trek home to Woodhaven. I’ve heard lots of people say Lisbon reminds them of San Francisco. Can’t wait to see if I agree!

Beautiful sunset over Porto and Gaia. 
I totally get why gathering on the bridge to watch
the sunset is a daily local tradition.

 

Blown Away by Barcelona

I have wanted to visit Barcelona for years. Decades, actually. I don’t remember for sure, but the Mediterranean metropolis might have hit my radar during the 1992 Olympics. Well, 34 years later… Barcelona, you were worth the wait. WOW!

Rob and I spent today on our own. No pre-arranged tours or tastings, no guides who knew our names. Today it was just the two of us, anonymously hanging out on the top of a double-decker tour bus winding its way around a spectacularly beautiful Spanish city on the Mediterranean. It was wonderful.

On a bus! With the Futbol Club Barcelona
(Soccer) Stadium behind us.

We spent about 6 hours touring the city, only getting off the bus once to walk around the perimeter of the famed Sagrada Familia Basilica (more on that later) and grab some mid-day snacks. It was a beautifully sunny day, mid-70s, that produced a slight sunburn and the purchase of a new baseball hat. I had all the provisions – they were just unhelpfully chilling in our air conditioned hotel room.

I realized I was falling in love with Barcelona when I started making a mental list of the tour stops I wished we had time to come back to. 

The old bullfighting colosseum that was turned into a marketplace when Barcelona officially banned bullfighting in 2012.

The Arenas de Barcelona bull ring now shopping
center. The last bull fight here was in 1977.

The stunning Olympic Park area on the top of a mountain with incredible views.

I desperately want to go back to soak in this view!

The funicular ride down a mountainside.

The sparkling cruise port and beaches with the calm Mediterranean waters.

The beaches looked soft, uncrowded, clean, and
super relaxing.

The late-1800s amusement park on the top of Barcelona’s tallest mountain peak that reportedly boasts an elegant blend of new and old.

At each turn of the bus into a different section of this beautiful city of nearly 2 million lucky residents, I yearned to hop off the bus and dig deeper.

I was struck by how parts of Barcelona reminded me of other cities I have visited. The walkable, palm-lined section along the water was very similar to San Francisco with its sparkle and occasional outdoor art. The way the city creeps from the ocean up to tall mountains reminded me of Acapulco. The wide avenues and Spanish-style stucco buildings with ornate metal work reminded me of Buenos Aires. I occasionally caught glimpses of buildings that looked oddly Parisian. Meandering through the Old Town of narrow, stone streets reminded me of countless cities outside of the United States. Maybe it was the variety of familiarity that made me so oddly comfortable?

All that's missing is the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge
off to the right

And yet, despite all the ways Barcelona feels like someplace else, it is also uniquely itself.

It has the widest diversity of architecture I have ever seen in a city. Modern, post-modern, Spanish, French, wood, stucco, brick, metal. Pointy buildings, rounded buildings, simple buildings, elaborate buildings. And so many buildings proudly described by using the architect’s name. Buildings are art in Barcelona. Not to mention the outside public art.

Casa Batllo, designed by Antoni Gaudi
Once a house, now a UNESCO World
Heritage Site

Random building that looks both
French and Spanish to me

Beautiful blend of old and new 

Much more modern near the waterfront

Random outside art
This is called "Woman and Bird"
If you say so...

And then the streets. There are SO many trees lining streets in Barcelona! A taxi driver told us that since the city doesn’t have many public parks, it has trees instead to give a sense of nature and green and calm. I’m there to tell you, it works. All the trees somehow make the enormity of Barcelona feel cozy and neighborhoody instead.

View from our hotel room
downtown

We were also told that the major intersections throughout the city are intentionally designed with chiseled edges to increase airflow and visibility for safety. So instead of your typical plus-sign shaped intersection, imagine the 90-degree points are lopped off like slicing off the corner of a piece of cake. What you have left is an intersection that is more open and rounded and almost feels like a tiny town square. Not only are cars and pedestrians more visible, the feeling is more communal and friendly. A resident revealed that this design feature provides more room for outdoor tables and places to chitchat al fresco. Such a small change but it makes a huge impact.

See how the corner is chiseled off? Imagine 
that on all four corners. So spacious and inviting!

Of course, any first trip to Barcelona must include a visit to the enormously tall and enormously unique Sagrada Familia Basilica. Designed by architect Antoni Gaudi, it started being built in 1882. Despite recent reports to the contrary, it still isn’t finished. Note the cranes in my photos.

I have soooo many variations
of this photo...

Described by Wikipedia as having a style of “Gothic Revival, Art Nouveau, and Modernista,” the basilica is made of stone and concrete and metal. It is crazy tall (at 566 feet, it is the tallest church in the world), and it features all sorts of religious scenes and persons and symbols on the outside. It has three sides, each telling a different part of the story of Jesus Christ’s life. One side is the Nativity (Jesus’ birth and childhood), one is the Passion (Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection), and the third is the Glory (Jesus’ path to God and eternal life).

Close-up of a section of the
Passion Side. The first column is
the Jesus Column (it is much taller).
The second is the Thomas Column.
The third is the Phillip Column.
Each Apostle has his own column.

We slowly walked around the perimeter of the basilica, which took about 30 minutes. We had been warned that pickpockets are rather active in Barcelona – and we assumed especially so around The Main Attraction – so we were not as lingery as either of us would have preferred. It was quickly clear that you could make a full-time job studying the Sagrada Familia and noting all the details, both architecturally and religiously. So even if we had spent all day gazing at the structure that mythically birthed the word “gaudy” (it’s a great story; I’m bummed it isn’t true!), we still would have only scratched the bizarrely intriguing surface.

We didn’t go inside the basilica; the first available tickets are a month away. We searched online to see what the inside looks like. Wow, so much stained glass! Rob and I agreed that if we ever make it back to Barcelona (already on my radar again), we will make sure to plan ahead to go inside the Sagrada Familia instead of just stalking it from the outside, clutching our cellphones and wallets.

I suppose at this point the cranes are
the Modern part of the Post Modern
vibe

As we sat at the rooftop bar of our hotel tonight, gazing at Gaudi’s iconic landmark, Rob and I agreed we wouldn’t mind living in Barcelona. I think it might be the first foreign city we have ever said that about. Of course, Rob’s interest was qualified with “If I had to live in Spain…” I leaned fully in and said, “I could live here.” We haven’t left yet and I already miss it.

Click here to see a short video of
Barcelona from our hotel's roof

So tomorrow we say adios to Spain and head to Portugal to learn about…port! Much to my surprise, our day in Barcelona today did not allow me to cross “Visit Barcelona” off my travel bucket list. Instead, I have added “AGAIN!”

Barcelona, you captured my heart!

We will be back, Barcelona!

Spanish Wine Education

If you have hung around Woodhaven Ramblings for any length of time, you know that Rob and I are wine fans. We drink wine, we make wine, we talk about wine, we travel for wine. We realized long ago that the more we learn about wine, the less we really know about it. Nevertheless, we keep trying to crack the code on la vida de vino.

Driving our desire to travel to Spain was to learn about its wine. We didn’t know much about it before we got here. Now that we’ve spent about a week touring the northern wine-making regions, we know a bit more. We hung out in two main areas: the Ribera del Duero and Rioja. Here’s what we know!

• The world of Spanish wine is a LOT less complicated than, say, French wine. Or even American wine.
  
  

  

  That's Rioja behind us!

  
  
• There’s basically one grape that dominates Spanish wines. It’s a red grape, called Tempranillo. It accounts for about 40% of the grape vines planted in Spain.
  
  

  

  The vines already had little teensy grapes on them!
  Everyone was saying the harvest is going to be 
  early this year.

  
  
• Tempranillo is an early-ripening, early-harvested grape. The grape is named after the Spanish word “temprano” which means “early.”
  
  

  

  Rob checking out the tiny clusters.

  
  
• Since there’s really only one grape in Spain, the winemakers pay a LOT of attention to things like soil and fermentation vessels and aging techniques. They experiment and play with these factors to try to distinguish their wines. They also care a lot about the differences between tiny plots of vines, determined to suss out which plots yield which wine characteristics.
  
  
• The main soil types in the areas we visited are clay, limestone, and sand.
  
  
• Spanish winemakers ferment and age their wines in a variety of materials including stainless steel, cement, oak, and clay.
  
  

  

  Sadly, these cement eggs do not come in
  home-winemaker sizes. I desperately
  want a mini one to name Mork.

  
  

  

  We have stainless steel tanks in the US, but these
  look more European for some reason. Or like a
  blender base. Very kitcheny. Speaking of which,
  I still don't have one. A kitchen I mean.

  
  
• There are 96 designated wine regions in Spain (called DOCs). They all have pretty strict rules. Like France, Spain controls how much grapes farmers can harvest per hectare (in weight) in order to concentrate the quality. The typical restriction is about 7,000 kilograms per hectare which translates to about 3 tons of grapes per acre (shout out to Rob and his mad calculator skillz!). Basically, they are focusing on quality over quantity.
  
  
• The designations of Crianza, Reserve, and Grand Reserve for Spanish Tempranillos do not necessarily indicate quality. Instead, they only tell you how long the wine was aged before being bottled. A Crianza is aged for less than 2 years; a Reserve is aged for 3-5 years; and a Grand Reserve is aged for more than 5 years.
  
  

  

  It smelled wonderful in this barrel room!

  
  
• The Tempranillos Rob and I have had made from grapes grown in the United States (or South America) are not nearly as good as the Spanish versions. Now that we can compare, American Tempranillos tend to be lighter, chalkier, and more tannic. Spanish Tempranillos are all about red fruits (strawberry, raspberry, cherry) but can also have the weight and dark fruitiness of a Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. Nevertheless, Spanish Tempranillos are a great BBQ or pork or fancy pizza wine -- lighter than a Merlot, heavier than a Pinot Noir.
  
  
• Spanish Tempranillos tend to have a subtle undertone in their nose (smell) of Magic Marker or a light, sweet chemical smell. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a really cool discovery that will help us identify Spanish Tempranillos in the future!
  
  

  

  This photo doesn't really have anything
  to do with Magic Markers. I just love
  the photo and the memory of us being
  in a wine cave standing next to an
  enormous barrel that was well over
  100 years old.

  
  
• There ARE some other grape varieties in Spain. Most of the red ones are used to blend with the Tempranillo. Main red blending grapes are Garnacha (Grenache), Graciano, and Mazuelo (Carignan).
  
  
• The main white wines we tried were Verdejo (as the name suggests, this wine had grassy notes) and Albillo (my notes included descriptors of pickle, barnyard, and litter box. Yeah, not a fan). I also tried a few rosés made from Tempranillo. I wasn’t a fan of those either. They were more farmy and less fruity and floral than my preferred rosés made from French Rhône varietals.
  
  

  

  Super cool winery architecture! And our most
  fabulous guide -- and now friend -- Itzi!

  
  

Cheers to traveling for educational purposes!