The Creation of Port Wine
During the Hundred Years' War and the subsequent War of the Spanish Succession, England was cut off from importing wine from France, which they were fighting against.
When peace came at the end of the 17th century, the French king imposed duties on all wine to England, which caused the English to start looking for new markets. The choice fell on Portugal, as Portuguese wine was duty-free.
The fact that the wine now had to be shipped in Porto and not in Bordeaux made the sea voyage home to England 1000 – 1200 km longer. The young wine was not very seaworthy, so this, combined with the extended sailing time, made the wine worse and worse.
A clever wine merchant in Porto made a beneficial experiment by adding a little alcohol to the wine before the sea voyage to increase its shelf life.
This was indeed forbidden, but since it was a workable solution, economics was given more weight than law.
The addition of wine spirit stopped the fermentation and the sugar content in the wine was preserved. Port wine was thus a reality.
Subsequently, the addition of wine spirit has been legalized and it has been decided to add an amount of wine spirit so that the alcohol percentage ends up at approximately 20%, exactly as we know fortified wine today.
