Port wine at a fado concert

What the ticket includes

The GetYourGuide ticket includes one glass of port wine or water, and food and additional drinks are not included. The ticket does not say which style of port is poured, so do not promise yourself a particular colour or age. Food and drinks of your own are not allowed in the concert room. If you want to taste more than one port, a cellar tasting in Vila Nova de Gaia is one route, and it is a separate booking from the concert hour. The hour itself is about the music, with the glass as a short, sweet pause inside it.

How port is made

Port comes from the Douro Valley in the north of the country and is fortified. A neutral grape spirit called aguardente is added to the fermenting wine, which stops fermentation and leaves residual sugar and a higher alcohol content, between 19 and 22 per cent in the sources. It is typically sweet and red, although dry, semi-dry and white versions exist. The Douro region was established as a protected wine region in 1756.

Why it is called port

The wine took the name port in the latter half of the seventeenth century, from Porto, the seaport where the Douro meets the Atlantic and where much of it was shipped. From the thirteenth century the wines of the Douro Valley were carried to Porto in flat-bottomed boats called barcos rabelos. The wine was aged in lodges in Vila Nova de Gaia, on the south bank facing Porto, and the lodges still occupy the amphitheatre-shaped slopes there.

Gaia, across the river

Vila Nova de Gaia faces Porto across the Douro, linked by the double-deck Dom Luís I Bridge of 1886. Its historic cellars occupy the amphitheatre-shaped slopes of the south bank. They handled the packaging, transport and export of fortified wine, which is why the wine is named after Porto and not Gaia. Several cellars offer guided tours and tastings. A glass at the concert makes a good prelude: you meet the drink in the room, and the cellars are across the bridge when you want the production side.

Ruby, tawny and white

The two main red categories are ruby and tawny. Ruby ports are younger. Tawny ports are aged in barrel, and are often labelled with ages from ten to fifty years. Colheita is a single-vintage tawny, made from the wine of one year. White and rosé ports also exist, with rosé first released in 2008. Because the venue does not name the port it pours, the glass at the concert is best treated as an introduction to the family and not a tasting of one specific style. If a style catches your attention, note its name from the bottle on the shop shelf and look for it at a cellar in Gaia.

How to drink it at a concert

Port is sweet and strong, and a single glass is plenty for an hour of music. Take it slowly, since the room is quiet, the music asks for attention and glasses clink loudly in silence. Guests describe a short interval in the hour, which is the natural time to finish a glass. A small glass of a sweet, strong wine is easy to savour in that time. If you would rather not drink alcohol, the ticket offers water in its place, and nobody needs an explanation for the choice.

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