1930 The Savoy Cocktail Book

PORT

Vintage Port is the wine of one particular year, and is only produced when the wines of that year are particularly fine. All Vintage Ports have a peculiar character of their own, and the true Port connoisseur can tell at a sip to what particular year a Vintage Port belongs. It is bottled two, and sometimes three, years after the vintage and matures entirely in bottle. Tawny Port, so called from its lighter colour, is a blend of the wine of several years, and is matured entirely in casks. It does not possess the richness or the bouquet of Vintage Port, and is, as a rule, made from wines which, although good, are not sufficiently excellent to stand alone. Ruby Ports are something between the two. They are matured partly in cask and partly in bottle. They are very popular with Port lovers who cannot afford the high prices which Vintage Ports now fetch. A really good Ruby Port may even at times deceive an expert, but it cannot be relied upon, and varies from bottle to bottle. Port is shipped under the names of the Blenders. Most of the old-established shippers have English names, thus bearing witness to the fact that a hundred years ago Port was in very truth an English wine, manufactured in Portugal by the English and for the English. The best Port Vintages of the past forty years were 1890, 1896, 1900, 1908, 1912, 1917 and 1919, and the principal Oporto Shippers, under whose names the Vintage Ports are sold, are :

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