Port Wine, the Seven Years War, and Michigan
Porto, Portugal
by Jack Costa
It seems somewhat obvious, albeit uncreative, how the Portuguese people of the port city of Porto came to choose the name Port as the moniker of their most prized wine offering to the world. What is not quite so obvious is how this non-conformist wine style has come to be so adored by so many for so many centuries. But to truly understand Port, one must rst understand the British people’s love of wine and their utter distaste for French monarchs. For centuries, England’s frequent and prolonged wars with nearby France presented many hardships and trials, not the least of which was the catastrophic and inhumane interruption of imports of their beloved French wine. The constant series of con icts between the two nations eventually led the British to begin sourcing wines from the more hospitable, but more distant, Kingdom of Portugal. Originally, before the days of FedEx and free shipping with $100 minimum purchases, express shipping meant wine traveled on long overseas journeys in wooden casks that were far from air-tight. These wines’ prolonged exposure to air made them very vulnerable to oxidation and ultimately risked turning the valuable cargo into vinegar. To protect the wine from oxidation, winemakers began adding brandy to the wine barrels before their journeys. Problem solved, French be damned. Eventually, some inventive, or perhaps inept, Portuguese winemaker had the bright idea to add brandy to the wine before the fermentation was fully completed. This addition of alcohol kills the yeast and stops fermentation prematurely, leaving residual sugar in the wine. The resulting wine is the distinctly sweet and aromatic style that we now recognize as Port. One might think as technology advanced and wine began to be transported in air-tight bottles the practice of adding brandy to wine would go the way of Continued on next page
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