Port wine is known by the name of the city that exports it, Oporto in Portugal. The first reference of it was around 1600 and it gained its commercial success because of England. England always had a good relation with Portugal, they would always send people to fight for us whenever we got attacked by either Spain or France, so we developed aggreements that made it easy to trade between the two countries. England was first interested in Portugal's fruit, olive oil and then Port wine. During hostile times between England and France, in England it wasn't allowed to drink French wine, so once again they turned to Port wine.

Port wine's characteristics distinguish it from common wines. All varieties of port have rich, intense aromas and flavour, with a high alcohol content (usually between 19 and 22% vol).

It is a fortified wine, which means some form of alchol is added, in this case, aguardiente is added. Also called firewater it has an alchol percentage of 50 to 80. By adding aguardiente during the fermentation process, the grapes' sugar doesn't dissapear improving the flavor and the longevity of the wine.

Port wine is usually drunk as a digestif, with dessert and also used in general cooking

types of port

white made from white grapes very good to use in cocktails range from dry to very sweet

Vintage made entirely from the grapes of a declared vintage year and that makes about 2 percent of overall port production declaring a vintage year depends on each house of production and that is usually 3 time a decade kept in ageing cellars for a period that can last up to 40 years, depends on how much of a vintage you want it

Ruby
Ageing process has little to no oxidation (only stays in wooden barrels up to 3 years) young wine, rich in fruity aromas most common type of wine, most inexpensive

Late bottled vintage originally wine that had been chosen for bottling as vintage port, but because of lack of demand it was left in the barrel for longer than had been planned

Tawny are aged in wooden barrels, exposing them to gradual oxidation and evaporation
Tawny ports are sweet or medium dry and typically consumed as a dessert wine

Reserve is a premium ruby port approved by a certified tasting panel

Port wine can only be produced in the Douro region, and traditionally it would be transported to the cellars in Gaia in boats called 'Rabelos' and nowadays these are used for tourists to go up and down the river to see the vineyards and cellars.

Gaia and Oporto are separated by a bridge and all the wine cellars are in Gaia's quayside. When you cross the bridge coming from Oporto, Calem's cellar is the first one and it was the first one I went to when I visited Oporto last year, that's where I got the wine you tasted today. There are 14 major wine cellars that you can visit all year. By visiting a wine cellar you can see the wine stored, they usually have videos telling the story about that specific house and brand and you can taste all types of wines and buy them