Port Wine Balance

The 20% abv is right. On the sweetness, it's hard to tell. It sounds a bit high to me, but I don't make a lot of sweet wines. I'd be inclined to start a good deal lower than that, and sweeten to taste. You'll want to do some "bench trials" -- add measured amounts of sugar to a couple ounces of wine at a time, and see what sugar level works best. If you are testing with table sugar, I believe you can expect some increase in perceived sweetness, as it breaks down into simple sugars. If that concerns you, you can sweeten using simple sugars instead, or follow the procedures available from various sources to "invert" the table sugar into simple sugars.

In terms of acids, I believe you'll want to be in the "normal" range for acids in table wines, but probably towards the high end. The sugar in port tends to balance the acidity, so you can probably go higher in acid than for other types of wines, without the final product tasting unbalanced. Normal for a red table wine would be something in the range of 7 g/L or so. If the wine tastes "flabby" to you at that level, after adding the alcohol and sweetening, you might want to do bench trials to see if a bit more acidity would improve it.

I agree with you that it's better not to be too wild and crazy with your first couple of batches, until you develop some sense for what is "normal." On the other hand, at this point in the process, the adjustment of sweetness and acidity really only have to please your taste buds - there aren't any particular "standards" that you need to worry about. It it tastes good to you, that's good enough.

Doug

Maynard Amerine pretty much wrote the book on American winemaking but I would do as Doug said, just add sugar in trials until you like where you end up. Just make sure the alcohol is where you want it first, alcohol tastes sweet to begin with. I don't make port so can't offer useful advice. I have some other references and will take a look later and post on the acids.

Acid should be lower than for red table wines - the base for port is a red wine made in a hot region and the must gets diluted with alcohol, so ideally you're looking at something around 5 g/L TA, 6 at most. For sugar, go with what the other posters said and do it by taste.

Also, you're starting with a very different base material, so that's another argument for taking Amerine's numbers only as a rule of thumb.

The advanatage with port is that you can bulk age it for a long time, so a good way of doing this is sweeten up in several stages, let sit for a month or so and then retaste until you get the balance you want.

Pp

Thanks for the replies. I didn't think about keeping it in a carboy and sweetening prior to bottling if needed as it ages. No reason why that can't be done. Except I'll need that carboy. Oh well, I need another 3 gallon jug anyway ;-)

TA is 0.6%, it tastes all right so we'll work with that. So far I like it.

Amerine also mentions some ports in California are heated to 120degF for a few minutes to simulate aging. Anyone have experience with this? I thought I might try it with 1 of the 3 gallons see what happens.

Thanks Steve Oregon

I realize you are making port using a different method (fermenting to dry, then resweetening) than I have, and I'd have to check my files, but if I remember right, I fortified to about 19% when brix reached

10-12. I'm pretty sure this is the sweetness level of most port. But, as others have mentioned, you can sweeten to whatever taste you desire. I started with very high brix merlot grapes, by the way.

miker

I was thinking that the brix probably changes after adding the fortification, so perhaps it ends up a little lower. Maybe even down to the 7 or so reported earlier in this thread. Can't say I ever tested the brix of the finished product.

miker

Hi Mike:

That's the way port is made, and if possible I will try that technique this year.

I oaked my plum port 0.1oz/gal at fermentation and again at the 2nd racking. Yesterday brought it up to 20% abv by addition of Everclear (avaialble in Oregon) and sweetened to just over 5 Brix.

Played around bench tasting with an oak extract I made and ended up adding 1 full tablespoon to the 3 gallons. Everclear has been soaking in chips for a couple of seasons and is really heavy to vanilla, I mean in your face vanilla and smooth. Not like it was when only a few weeks or months old. Side by side tastes it added mouthfeel and smoothed the rough edges of the 20% abv.

I was going to add a little sweetness to cut the abv edge but it seems the oak has accomplished that with some added interest. This is a prune plum port, has a reddish hue with an orange background.

Right now it's going to settle and clear a bit more before a final taste and tweaking if needed. Then bottle. I would really like to age this stuff some, but I'm not sure I will be able to let it cellar. Very impressed with this little odd ball port.

Also sweetened a Gewerz. last night. Very perfumey, a little odd tasting from the handling, but sweetened to taste *just* off dry. Will let it set and tweak if needed.

Take Care Steve Oregon