For The Love Of Port

I recently saw some colheitas from Royal Oporto in a local shop, and they were all in clear glass bottles which were almost like decanters.

http://www.realcompanhiavelha.pt/i_vp.cfm?s=4&ss=15

I would have thought that there were rules for which kind of bottles you could use, and isn't there a risk of the light damaging the wine in a clear glass bottle?

-and it somehow made the port look cheap and completely wrong in these bottles :)

-Lars

Hi Lars,

Others can comment on any rules or regulations regarding bottle type. I wouldn't be too concerned about the clear class since most of the time the bottles will set in a dark cellar. Although the bottles are cheesy and difficult to store, I can assuire you the Port inside is pretty decent stuff. I had a bottle of the 1953 Colheita last August that was very good.

There are no rules as for the color of the glass. It is only a marketing thing. Tawny are meant to be drunk in a short lapse of time after you buy it, it is probably the reason why they put it in clear glass.

When I asked one producer what he thought of the color of the glass for wine and port, he told me that the darker is the better. If it would sell, he would put is Rosé in a darker bottle instead of clear glass.

Light does have an impact on the wine, dark glass does protect. It is especially important with VP that do normally stay on shelves for a longer time than tawnies.

Coolest glass bottle is the Niepoort Garrafeira; it's a light green bumpy textured bottle. One of the few bottles I kept after finishing.

Kris Henderson wrote:Although the bottles are cheesy and difficult to store, I can assuire you the Port inside is pretty decent stuff.

These Coheita bottles and thee Tawny bottles in particular remind me a lot of some of the more expensive cognac bottles... perhaps they are trying to emulate the bottle-type of the fine (XO) cognacs in order to become associated with these examples of fine spirits?

Todd