Vintage port wine
Wine drinking and cultivation has since long become embedded in the social and cultural lives of the Portuguese population. Any celebration, expression of joy and happiness is necessarily celebrated by people with the accompaniment of wine. This kind of festivity and carnival can be traced to have its roots in the classical times when the ancient residents of the world paid homage and tried to appease the very powerful gods and goddesses by celebrating and preaching their aura and nobility by means of rejoicing through wine drinking and merriment. The culture continues even today. Even in pure economic terms one can state without doubt that wine cultivation has fetched Portugal tremendous benefits which have had a positive effect on the social life of its countrymen.
The Vintage port wines are a kind of Port wine which constitutes about 2% of production and are produced from the grape varieties obtained in a particular vintage year. Only if the favorable climatic and mechanical factors are conducive to the production of refined wine, it is only under such circumstances that the year is declared as vintage in the Douro valley region. The productions of Vintage port wines include a long and complex process which is immensely time consuming. These Vintage wines are required to mature in wood ports or barrels for about a period of two and a half years before the bottling is done. After this they are left to mature for about twenty to thirty years before they attain the proper quality required for consumption. The very refined Vintage wines continue to be preserved in excellent conditions for decades since they wee bottled. Also as a result of being left to mature for decades in barrels, the Vintage port wines manage to preserve their fruit flavor and dark crimson color. These wines are extremely popular in Portugal and very expensive too. The most famed of the Vintage port wines are the Single Quintas.
