Port Wine

PORT WINE, a wine made from grapes grown in the valley of the Douro, fortified at the time of the vintage, and shipped from Oporto. By virtue of the Anglo-Portuguese treaties of and 1916, no other wine can legally be called port.

The quality of port depends in the first place upon the quality of the grapes from which the wine was made originally, the best wine being made only from the finer species of grapes and from the more suitable vineyards. The quality depends in the second place upon the quality and quantity of the brandy used at the vintage time to check fermentation; also upon the time and man ner in which this addition is carried out. When the grapes are pressed, their sweet juice begins to ferment at once, i.e., the grape sugar is being gradually converted by the natural process of fermentation into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. In order to retain a certain proportion of this grape sugar, brandy is added at a given time and fermentation is immediately checked. At that stage port is a blend of fermented grape-juice (wine), distilled wine (brandy) and unfermented grape-juice; and its quality de pends chiefly upon the length of time and manner of keeping it.

Vintage Port is a wine made in any one year, shipped from Oporto usually two years of ter it is made, and bottled almost im mediately by the importer. Vintage port matures slowly but it retains more body and more colour, and it acquires with age a finer bouquet than any other type of port. Vintage port, to be at its best, must be a wine shipped by a reliable port shipper, and well bottled by an expert wine-merchant ; it must have been kept long enough but not too long ; it must be carefully decanted.

Tawny Port is a wine which has been kept in cask and has been in contact with a greater proportion of oxygen from the outside air than the early-bottled wine : it has aged more rapidly and possesses less colour and less body than the vintage port.

Tawny port is not, usually, the wine of any one year's grapes but a blend of wines made in different years. Tawny port is kept by the port shipper in his "lodges," at Oporto or Villa Nova da Gaia, and is shipped when ready for consumption.

Ruby Port is a compromise between the early-bottled vintage port and the matured-in-wood tawny port. It may be the wine of one vintage kept in cask for some years and bottled whilst still deep in colour, or it may be a blend of ports of different years and styles, a blend which may be made by the port shipper, at Oporto, or by the importer at home to suit the taste of indi vidual customers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Andre

L. Simon, Wine and Spirits (1919) ; The Blood of the Grape (192o) ; Wine and the Wine Trade (1921) ; The Supply, the Care, and the Sale of Wine (1923) ; W. J. Todd, A Hand book on Port (1926) ; G. Tait, Practical Handbook on Port Wine (1926) ; C. Sellers, Oporto Old and New (1899) ; B. C. da Costa, 0 Portugal Vinicola (1900) ; J. E. dos Santos, 0 Vinho do Porto (1916). (A. L. S.) PORUS (4th century B.c.), an Indian prince, ruler of the country between the rivers Hydaspes and Acesines at the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great. In the battle on the banks of the Hydaspes he offered a desperate resistance, and Alexander, struck by his independent spirit, allowed him to retain his king dom, which he increased by the addition of territory. From this time Porus was a loyal supporter of Alexander. He still held the position of a Macedonian satrap when assassinated some time between 321 and 315 B.C.

See Arrian v. 18, 19; Plutarch, Alexander, 60 ; Quintus Curtius viii. 14.