When I wrote about 40 year old ports, I mentioned that port houses will need to keep back some wine to be aged in oak barrels each year. They will need to be marked with the year of production as this will be needed in the blending process for the indicated age tawnies. But these are not vintage ports; those are aged in bottle after a couple of years in barrels. Instead of using the English word vintage (which only really means the grape harvest), the Portuguese word colheita (also meaning harvest) is used instead. These undergo barrel ageing with a more oxidative character, which will show as a certain nuttiness on both nose and palate. Hence colheita ports are a sort of year dated tawny port.
The word colheita is also used to denote a different type of Madeira from the ordinary vintage wines, but that again is another story.
No comments:
Post a Comment