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Home > Vintage Charts > Port Chart
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Vintage Charts for Vintage PortsWelcome to Port Vintage Charts, the home of vintage charts for this classic wine. Our vintage charts are here to help you choose and evaluate vintage ports. Sponsored Links
Types of Port Port divides quickly into two different kinds of wine: Vintage Ports and Wood Ports. Vintage Ports, accounting for only two percent of all Port made, age briefly in wood and then spend years maturing patiently in the bottle. By law, Vintage Port must be bottled two years after the vintage. Wood Ports are defined as everything that is not Vintage Port. They spend several years aging in wooden caskets and are typically ready to drink once they reach the marketplace. Wood Ports include such recognizable wines as Ruby, Tawny and White Ports, but also such wines are Vintage Character Ports, as well as the Late Bottled Vintage Ports. The vintage chart works on a scale of one to ten: the higher the number, the better the vintage. The letters represent how the vintage has aged; some may need cellaring, while others may have already reached their peak. Vintage charts are subjective generalizations that assume perfect maturation conditions. Vintages without marks produced no quality wine, were not shipped or, due to rarity, have never been tasted. About the Port Region Port is a fortified wine from the vineyards of Portugal's Douro Valley. The name Port is from the city of Oporto, which is located at the mouth of the 560-mile long Rio Douro. Some have proposed that the Douro Valley was probably the world’s first officially demarcated wine region. It was demarcated in 1756, and covers over 618,000 acres. Of this large area, only 12% (or approximately 82,000 acres) is actually used to cultivate vines. The rest is covered with harsh, rugged mountains that rise up from the Douro River and its tributaries. Steep slopes and high elevations restrict the growers from spreading the vines over a greater area. The region is considered to start at the Serra do Marão, a mountain range forty miles inland, extending almost one hundred miles east to the Spanish border. The mountains that surround the valley create a rain shadow effect, drastically limiting rainfall east of the mountains. Thus, the climate of the Douro Valley region is one of extremes. The summers are hot and dry, while the winters can be quite cold, dropping well below freezing point. The soil in this region is acidic and made up of schistous granite, which often makes it very difficult to fashion the steep mountainsides into the traditional wine terraces. Often, dynamite and bulldozers are the only option. All in all, the Douro Valley is a surprisingly hostile birthplace for wines of such flavor and beauty. Port Vintage Chart Key
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