They’ve been lurking on exhibitors stands for years, with their funny shaped bottles and often gregarious bright colours. Sometimes in tall, thin, frosted glass bottles and even ones with feathers stuck to them. They look tempting, but what are they exactly? In most cases the answer is: Port!

Port wine is a style of fortified wine, originating from the Duoro region of Portugal. It’s nothing new, in fact it was as far back as 1678 when two vacationing English traders discovered a wine that had been fortified with brandy. They were impressed and bought all the stock, added a little bit more brandy spirit and introduced it to the English market where it became an instant hit.

South African ports have themselves a history dating back to the early 19th century. Again the English market provided the customers required and exports were bullish by the standards of the day. Our ports were almost exclusively sweet in style, and trends being as changeable as they are we suffered a decline in sales as the international palate gravitated towards a more dry style.

By the late 80’s things were improving in the world of SA Port, with a swing towards drier styles and higher quality. Good Ports are much sought after and at recent wine auctions, including the Nederburg Auction, Port fetched more than double that of other fortified wines.

Model: Christie Smith, Image: John Woodward

So, always keen to see how things are improving within the wide world of SA wine, our Taste Team graciously accepted the task of tasting some of the better examples from amongst our exhibitors.

To have as comprehensive a taste as possible we picked 7 Ports from across the spectrum of styles available. You can get the technical details on these styles at the South African Port Producers Association website here.

Here’s the line up:

Boplaas Cape White NV
Axe Hill Cape White NV
Boplaas Pink Port NV
De Krans The Original Pink Port NV
Goudini Winery Cape Ruby NV
Monis Vintage Port 2006
Klein Tulbagh Vintage Port 2002

It’s a good spread of styles and price points. There’re some medal winners in there, with the De Krans and Klein Tulbagh sporting gold Michaelangelo stickers and the Boplaas Cape White boasting a Wine magazine “Best Buy”.

Our thanks to Christie Smith for posing for this month’s photo.