Port anD the Douro 151grip. Ruby blends are generally made up from more than one year, aged in bulk for less than
three years and bottled young to capture the strong, fiery personality of young Port. The wines
are either aged prior to bottling in large wooden balseiros or more usually in lined cement or
stainless-steel vats. Racking is kept to a minimum in order to prevent any oxidative character
entering the wine. Some rubies have a coarse but rather hollow character as a result of heavy-
handed stabilisation but there is something honest and entirely admirable about a good down-
to-earth ruby, packed with raw, primary fruit. A glass of fiery ruby Port can be extremely
satisfying outdoors on a cold day or on a winter’s night with a slice of strong cheese.
Port and lemon
in the aftermath of the First World War, ruby Port was drunk in huge quantities by the
British and became strongly associated with the archetypal street-corner pub. it was
often the basis for a long drink, ‘Port and lemon’ – a shot of ruby poured over ice, let
out with fizzy lemonade and served with a slice of lemon. i have to admit to being a
fan of the British soap opera Coronation Street (one of the longest-running tV series in
the world) where Port and lemon was a special-occasion drink enjoyed at the Rovers
Return by ladies like hilda ogden (when she wasn’t in her curlers). the fashion for Port
and lemon began to fade in the 1960s and, sadly, the hildas of this world are now few
and far between. More recently, Liz Macdonald has been known to enjoy a Port and
lemon now and then but ruby Port has now given way to proprietary brands like archers
and Baileys. Port and lemon was that sort of drink!tawny
The word ‘tawny’ is attached to two very different styles of Port. It implies a wine that
has been aged in wood for longer than a ruby, until it takes on an amber-tawny hue. But
much of the tawny Port that reaches the shelves today is no older than the average ruby
and it is not uncommon to see the two wines standing side by side at the same price. These
inexpensive tawnies are merely lighter wines from the Baixo Corgo, occasionally let out
with white Port so that they appear pink. Heavy fining is also used to adjust the colour and
some shippers add a little mosto torrado (basically caramelised grape must), which lends an
artificially mature colour, aroma and flavour to the blend. This form of tinkering is not a
particularly new practice. At the beginning of the twentieth century Ernest Cockburn relates
that it was not uncommon to use ‘brown finings’, which ‘certainly removed the pinkness
of a wine, but produced in its stead an unpleasant yellow, greenish colour...’. Fining is still
used as a means to tinker with the colour but today’s young tawnies are rather more natural
in appearance than they were in Ernest Cockburn’s day. Many wines spend a summer up in
the Douro being estufado (stewed) in cement balões by the ambient heat and, as one shipper
admitted candidly, these Ports see wood by accident rather than by design. The resulting
wines usually display a slightly brown tinge on the rim, are softer than ruby but tend to lack