This blog began as a record of taking the WSET Diploma, during which I studied and explored wines and spirits made all around the world. Having passed the Diploma and become a WSET Certified Educator, the blog has become much more: a continual outlet for my passion for the culture of wine, spirits, and beer.
I aim to educate in an informal, enlightening, and engaging manner. As well as maintaining this blog to track my latest enthusiasms, I provide educational tastings for restaurants and for private groups. Details can be found on the website, and collaborations are welcome.
Wine is my primary interest and area of expertise and this blog aims to immerse the reader in the history of wine, to understand why wine tastes like it does, and to explore all the latest news. At the same time, beer and spirits will never be ignored.
For the drinker, whether casual or professional, today is a good time to be alive.
All tagged port
With over 80 grape varieties allowed for port production, the wine is always a blend, combining the colour, acidity, alcohol, body, flavour profile, and, of course, quality of the many varieties. This episode focuses on the six most important, as well as the highest-quality variety for white port.
Extracting colour and tannin are all-important for the production of port; how and where the wine is aged afterwards determines the style. Those styles have changed a lot in the last fifty years - learn more in this episode.
The Douro is famous for its historic steep terraced slopes but modernisation over the last forty years have seen changes in how and where the grapes have been planted. Learn more about this hot, inhospitable, yet beautiful and world-class wine region.
An introduction to port, the great wine of Portugal: its history and how its styles have changed and developed over the centuries.
