1880 Facts about Port and Madeira by Henry Vizetelly

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In the Port Wine Country.

xnateriaUy to its cost omng to the labour.and loss attendant on the frequent rackings, as weU as the loss from leakage and evaporation. From Port losing its colour rapidly m the wood, as well as much of its fulness,wines of five years old cease to he regarded as shipping wines, and get relegated to the category of what are known as lodge wines, being used to give character and some of the quahties of age to younger vintages. ^ When wines are coming forward too rapidly m the lodge, and losing their fiilness and colour before their time, it is the practice with some shippers to transfer them from pipes to vats, and there to let them remain maturing more steadily while being less subject to waste from evaporation. Tlnhke sheriw.Port wine is not kept to any extent m soleras; stiU Messrs. Sandeman and the other large Oporto shippers all possess stocks of old wines of fine vintages,^ the character of which they keep up by refreshing them,as it is termed, with wines of a more youthful but equally high character. These soleras are exclusively used for blending purposes. A narrow roadway conducting to the river separates the piincipal,lodges of Messrs. Sandeman from their gloomy-looking Amarella stores, comprising a range of long low cumes,each dividedinto a couple of aisles by a series of arches, and containing numerous vintage wines of 1873 and 1875. As Port wine is believed to mature less perfectly when subject to the influence oflight, these stores have hut few windows or skylights. Walls and timbers alike are blackened bythe constantly-evaporating alcohol,and monster cobwebs hang in fantastic festoons before the dingy windows and from the dark,decaying rafters. The stock of wine in these united stores is larger than that held by any other shipper, and in the spring of the year will probably amount to httle short of 10,000 pipes. In connection with the stores is an extensive cooperage, a double-aisled building with open arcades, where pipe-staves from the Baltic are split, boiled, shaped, bent, and finally fixed together, after which the perfect casks are scalded, gauged,seasoned with wine,branded,and painted on the outside before they are considered fit to receive the wine designed for