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Wines #5B – Portugal

Port wine (Vinho do Porto) is usually simply known as Port. By EU law it is a fortified wine
produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. However you do still find
fortified wines labelled as Port from elsewhere in the world. Most Ports are sweet and most
are made from red wine but neither is true 100% of
the time.

I love Port, although as a diabetic I have to be very
careful as to how much I drink. Back in 2005 British
drinks company, Allied Domecq, agreed to a £7.4bn
takeover by Pernod Ricard of France and Fortune
Brands (Jim Beam – now Beam Suntory) of the USA.

The London head office of the company I
then worked for won the job of valuing all
the assets Fortune Brands was to end up
with. London seconded me to manage the
Plant & Machinery valuation side of the
job. I brought two colleagues with me from
NZ and assigned them to value all the
Domecq assets along the Doro. They were
treated to three hour lunches every day in
the Port lodges. Not a lot of work was
done in the afternoons!

Scottish brothers Robert & John Cockburn,
who were already successful wine
merchants in Leith near Edinburgh, set up a
branch of their firm in Porto in 1815. Shown
are a 1993 LBV (Late Bottled Vintage) and
the curiously named, Dry Tang.
Unfortunately the LBV is plastic. I promise it
is the only one I will show you. A Croft
Original is shown with a US importer’s label.
Founded in 1588 by Henry Thompson, the
company went through a succession of
mergers and names, eventually becoming
Croft. It is the oldest firm still active today as
a Port producer, although it did not have
premises in Portugal until 1654.

The Delaforce family is of Huguenot origin. The House of Delaforce was founded in Oporto
in 1868. Our first bottle is a ‘His Eminence’s Choice’ Superb Old Tawny with a lead seal.
Next is a White Port. Dow’s Port was taken over in 1877 by a company that dates from 1798,

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