After fermentation, it is stored in tanks of concrete or stainless steel to prevent oxidative ageing and to preserve its bright red colour and full-bodied fruitiness. Ruby Port: This is the least expensive and most extensively produced type of port. Port from Portugal comes in several styles: Under European Union Protected Designation of Origin guidelines, only the product from Portugal may be labelled as port. Fortified wines in the style of port are also produced outside Portugal, including in Australia, France, South Africa, Canada, Spain, and the United States. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, though it also comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties. Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. In modern vineyards, vines are planted separately, and five grapes have been declared the top choice for port: Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Barroca and Tinto Cão. Dozens of different grape varieties may be mixed together in these old vineyards. The Douro has a huge selection of local grape varieties, and many vineyards of impressive, gnarled old vines that give small yields of rich, complex wine, whether for port or for unfortified wines. The Douro Superior, very cold in winter, infernally hot in summer, is the biggest of the sub-regions (by no means all planted but much planting is underway). The Cima Corgo, including the towns of Pinhão, São João da Pesqueira and Tua, is the heartland of fine port production, also the source of many of today’s fine unfortified wines. The fertile, cooler, rainier Baixo Corgo, closest to the Serra do Marão, is the sub region with the most vineyards. The Douro region is divided into three sub-regions: from west to east the Baixo Corgo, Cima Corgo and Douro Superior. Rain falls mainly on the western side of the Marão range, and to a certain extent in the western end of the Douro wine region, but dwindle further up-river, and by the Spanish border conditions are almost desert-like. Here the Serra do Marão rises up, protecting the region from the influence of the Atlantic Ocean. The wine region follows the course of the river down from the Spanish border to a point near the town of Mesão Frio, about 90km up-river from the city of Porto (Oporto). Defying gravity on the steep slopes along the banks of the river and its tributaries, the vines are planted in poor, schistous soils. The Douro is one of the wildest, most mountainous and rugged wine regions of Portugal, cut through in deep twists and turns by the River Douro. Long famous as the source of port wine, the Douro is now also renowned for its fine, rich unfortified wines, both red and white.
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