Guide to Ribeira De Gaia, Home of the Port Wine

The northern Portuguese city of Porto is synonymous with its most famous product: port wine. A unique product of the Duoro Valley (port made elsewhere is not really port according to E.U. law), the industry that makes and bottles it are easily the foremost tourist attraction of the Duoro. Every year draws throngs of visitors the scenic riverfront of Porto, and to the Ribeira de Gaia across from it. It is there that one can stroll, stop in a port wine house for a sampling, and stroll on to the next one just a few blocks away.

What is Port Wine?
The wine starts in the same process used in making normal wine, all from grapes grown on the steep slopes of the Duoro. The grapes are mostly of the Touriga Nacional varietal, which is unpopular in the United States because it is hard to grow and has such small yields. Brandy (grape spirits) is added at a stage to stop fermentation, usually producing a sweet-but-strong wine that is makes for such a nice desert wine. This process was invented to make the wine more durable for shipment, mostly to the British market. However, over time the process was fine tuned creating a rich variety of port wines. There are some things to know about port, which is often simplified down to being merely ruby or (at best) ruby and tawny.

Tawny: This is a red grape port that is aged in an oak barrel, which mellows it out to a browner color and imparts woody-nutty flavors to it. Most tawnies are blends, with labeled age being the minimum average age of the port in the bottle. A tawny made entirely from one vintage (a port "single barrel") is called a colheitas.

Ruby: This is the other red grape port, and is aged in a stainless steel or concrete vat that prevents the same chemistry that mellows out the tawny port.

White: Little known outside of Portugal, white grapes are also made into port wine.

Vintage: A vintage port is made from the best grapes of a declared "good year." It is aged in an oak cask for no more than two and one half years before being bottled. Once in the bottle, the port should be left to age for a further ten to thiry years before they can be considered mature.

Touring Gaia
The Gaia area is reached very easily from Porto. Once on the riverfront, simply cross on the tourist footbridge that sits in the bottom tiers of Porto's iconic railway bridge. Once there, the riverfront will immediately provide the first of a series of port wine houses, such as the famed Sandeman. Every one of these offers a tour of the aging cellar (port wine is rarely made here) and a tasting, as well as a shop of their wares. A good tip is to check the map and find those port wine houses that are removed from the waterfront, such as Krohn. As these do not enjoy as good a location as the others (but have a product of equal quality), they frequently offer free tastings to attract visitors. The hike up the steep slope to get to them will make even the hardiest visitor thirsty, but the reward at the end is worth the trip and at a good price to boot.

Source: Personal experience.