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Question about Port fermentation

This may be a stupid question, but I can't think of a totally satisfactory answer off the top of my head.

I know that Port is made by starting a fermentation of a must, and then when it reaches a certain point (4% or so), brandy or other neutral grain spirits are added to halt fermentation, and to bring the % alcohol of the wine up to around 20% or so.

Question is, why bother fermenting it at all? Why not just start with a quantity of must and add brandy accordingly, so that its 20% ABV? Do the esters from the fermentation add something, or are the yeast hulls needed for the aging process in some way? Or do some Port makers do just what I'm talking about, and skip the fermentation stage altogether?

Does anybody know?

- Chris Sprague

Reply to
Chris Sprague
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The best I can say as a reply is that some few vintners do just that- they add brandy or neutral spirits to unfermented must, such a wine is called a Mistelle and can be quite good. One of our local wineries, Perry Creek in El Dorado California makes a Rouge and a blanc made from muscat. Several Cognac and Armagnac producers make a mistelle, but in France they have their own A.O.C. names, as in Pineau du Charentais(sp?) and Floc de Gascon. There are other areas in France I wont go into, suffice to say they are different from fortified wine in flavor and I have only seen that one rose mistelle fom P.C. and no other red examples. Try what you can find and have fun!

Reply to
kenneth mccoy

The answer is quite simple: Residual sugar. Fermentation is not interrupted at a certain degree of alcohol, but at a given amount of residual sugar, turning around 100 g/l (Taylor probably a little more). The usual alcoholic degree at that moment would be around 7%, but can be higher in very fine years or lower in less good.

M.

Reply to
Michael Pronay

That makes perfect sense now that I think about it. Thank you very much.

- Chris Sprague

Reply to
Chris Sprague

You're welcome! But in fact, this wisdom came from a trip to the Douro with George Sandeman (and from talks with Dirk van der Niepoort); I don't remember having read abiout it in one of my reference books.

M.

Reply to
Michael Pronay

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