Making Dow's Port at Quinta do Bomfim in Pinhão, Portugal
Visit Quinta do Bomfim (Dow's Port) in Pinhão, Portugal with Austin Beeman. This guided tour of the winery discusses the history of the winery, the nature of the Douro Valley, the process of Port Wine production, and the barrel aging that creates the diversity in port styles. Shot on location at Quita do Bomfim in November 2023.
Quinta do Bomfim is a port house located in Pinhao, easily accessible from the downtown center. It is the main house for Dow's Port and also owns other port brands such as Warre's, Graham's, and Cockburn's. The property is part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 2001 due to its beautiful landscape and stone terraces.
The Douro Valley, where Quinta do Bomfim is located, is the oldest demarcated and regulated wine region in the world. The Symington family, who owns Quinta do Bomfim, is the last remaining 100% family-owned port house. The property has around 200 acres, but they also buy grapes from smaller producers in the Douro Valley. The different estates within Quinta do Bomfim have different micro terroirs, which contribute to the unique profiles of each port brand.
The port production process involves stomping the grapes, interrupting the fermentation with wine spirit, and aging the port in barrels. The different types of port, such as vintage, ruby, and tawny, have different aging processes and flavor profiles.
I hope you enjoy this 22 minute video.
THIS IS EPISODE 93 OF UNDERSTANDING WINE WITH AUSTIN BEEMAN
Special thanks:
CALHOUN & COMPANY COMMUNICATIONS - Michelle Keene
PREMIUM PORT WINES, INC - Ashley Marie-Maisel Zerpa
THE ENTIRE TEAM AT SYMINGTON FAMILY ESTATES
and Brianne Cohen.
Transcript:
Note: Transcript was created by a third party service and I’ve endeavored to clean up the spelling of ‘wine words.’ Any persistent errors are mine alone.
Or, watch the video. It is awesome.
Austin beeman:
Quinta do Bomfim is one of the port houses that can be easily accessed by walking just from the downtown center of Pinhao itself.
Quinta do bomfim tour guide:
"Quinta do Bomfim being the main house for Dow's Port. We also own Warre's, Graham's, and Cockburn's, other port brands, and some of the most recognized port brands around the world.
"I like to start the visit from here mostly because of the view that you got in there. Over there you have a nice example of the little valley, how it is. This is the main characteristic of this area. This stone terrace is up on the hills. This was the way that we found to take some better profit from the land. It's so steep that if we don't not do it like this, it'll be hard to put our vines growing in here. It's a steep inclination on the field and this is what characterizes the Douro Valley, and it's mostly because of these views that we are part of the World Heritage of UNESCO since 2001.
"But on the other hand, it's beautiful landscape. For example, it's the second largest landscape in the whole world transformed by the human being with their own hands. But the problem, it's even nowadays the most, it still done by hand, 90% of the work and it's getting hard to find all those workers from year to year. So we were obliged to introduce machinery, but there we cannot use as many machines as we would like to because it's hard. The geography, the morphology, it's everything against us.
"But on the other hand, we do produce a lot of high quality wines, which is of course the most important thing here. The Douro Valley is a wine region. It's at the same time the oldest demarcated and regulated wine region in the whole world. 18th century, 1756. A huge area, more than 600,000 acres of total extension, but around 111 actually nowadays growing grapes.
"This place, Quinta Do Bomfim, belongs to the Symington family. And the Symington family, actually nowadays it's the last port house that it's 100% family business for a long time already. More than 140 years of history and still being done more history. Five generations and a Portuguese family business. They have Scottish roots, okay. And we never forgot our roots of course, but since the third generation, almost all of them born in Portugal and they remain here for a long time. So of course it's a Portuguese family business.
"Quinta Do Bomfim, it's a property with around 200 acres in total, but in the 27 estates we have more or less 2,500 acres of total area with planted vines nowadays, to grow our grapes. It's not enough to our wine production. We do buy grapes from smaller producers and the Douro Valley nowadays has more than 35,000 authorized producers of grapes or wine, which is not so hard to find the grapes. Some of those producers, we keep them as partners of business for a long time already. We know that we have high quality.
"The thing is that in order to prevail the profiles of each brand, we try to get the grapes from the small suppliers, from the surrounding area of each main estate for each brand, in order to keep the same profile of grapes, to produce the same profile of wine.
"Here, we also have another great example of the stone terraces. Although the vines here are not so, so old. The average age is around 40, 45 years old. There are two small plots or parcels inside of the property with 60 years old. Those ones with a smaller yield of production of course, but higher quality on the grapes. So normally the whole vines are the ones that we keep for high quality wines or even to do blends.
"In a straight line, the whole extension from the very beginning till the end, you find 50 miles, not a huge distance. We are not far away from the ocean. We are about 85 miles from the Atlantic Ocean in Porto. The main reason to have here a hot and dry weather, not Atlantic weather, it's located at the very beginning. The three big mountains that you find in here, Alvão, Marão, Montemuro. High mountains, working as a natural barrier protecting the valley into exposure into any kind of ocean breeze or winds that allows us to have a hot and dry weather here.
"You may start, imagine early morning in Porto with a rainy day with some fog, with temperatures about 50, 55 Fahrenheit. You came up, you cross the mountains and at least you will find around 65, 70 and no rain at all or not even fall. The main reason are the three big mountains and of course all further up you go more into the interior land. Yes, it gets hotter and drier. That's why Santarem, for example, it's the most extreme area. The hottest during summer, the coldest during winter, a huge variation in terms of temperature, low and high temperatures, and the one with less rain, 250 millimeters per square meter is generally the average of rain over there, which is almost nothing.
"So this allows to create, for example, here mostly in some of the grapes, really small berries, yes, not really juicier ones but quite concentrated, which then gives you lots of structure into your wines. And that location allows also on a simple way to say that over here, some of the lightest wines could be produced mostly here. This is the area most well known for port production. In here we do produce a lot of ports, but a lot of also red wine, full body reds, quite complex reds with a huge capacity to keep aging a lot of years inside of the bottle.
"Each property then has a different micro terrior, which is the richness of the valley. With the same grape Touriga in a different location, you will produce a different profile and that's what allows us, for example, talking about ourselves to have four port brands, Graham's, Cockburn's, Dow's, Warre's, and all of them, even if you try the same kind of port, 10 years for example, Graham's will be fruitier, sweeter, Cockburn's, more pepperish notes at the very end of the taste. Dow's the driest brand, even with sugar, it could be drier than any of the others and Warre's. And the main characteristic of Warre's port, it's that we grow grapes in higher altitudes, not at the bottom. So less sugar content, but then more floral notes, more freshness and more acidity in the wines. This is possible with the brands because of the location of the different estates around the valley.
"For example, in here you find Quinta da Cavadinha, Quinto do Vila Velha, Quinto dos Malvedos. If we do here a circle, you have something like more or less 15 miles of distance around them, the three. But here you have high altitude here at the very bottom of the valley in Malvedos too. Those three brands, they produce different profiles. Dry ports, more floral notes, more fruity and more sweet. And what's the big difference? Here it's easy. It's altitude here, bottom of the valley. So more heat from the sun and you can produce more sugary grapes and of course the wines will be dry, sweeter, but in this case, the big difference between this and this, they are more or less at the same altitude with the same weather. But here our vines, they are already distant, distant from the river with 100, 120 meters more or less distance from the river.
"But here the vines are quite exposed into the river. So the river works like a mirror reflecting more sun intensity and that proximity allows more sun intensity into the grapes, so at the end it'll have more sugar. That's why the profile, it's sweeter and a little bit more fruity than this one. It doesn't mean that Dow's, it's not sweet at all. It is, but compared it to Graham's, it's a drier brand that we produce with less residual sugar in generally. And this is a nice thing to understand, the terroir, a common terroir, but then each of the three estates with a different tiny micro terroir that produces a different profile.
"There let's take a look for example at the photos here to understand all heart, the work was always in here. This is a photo from 1963, but this work the way how they carry the grapes with these wooden baskets, it was done until the '90s. At the 90s you still find a lot of small producers picking the grapes and then transporting them with this wooden baskets and to think it's that, yes, wooden baskets, they are quite beautiful. They are. They're hand craft heart, but they may have up to 65 kilos each. So lots of hard work. A property like this at the early beginnings in our harvest, they will have 100 workers. You need a team to carry, you need to cut them. A lot of workers work needed. Nowadays we transport them by track, which is easier.
"And another thing to show how hard this was, always carrying wine from here to Vila Nova guys. So down on the river. We are inside of this building, okay, this photo, it's from 1960, so look at the river in here. Shallow waters, almost no water. So going down was the easiest part because up against the stream it was quite hard to them came up to carry more wine down.
"This image, the main reason to be so shallow waters on those times, no dams. After the '70s, beginning of the '70s, the first one I think started in '74 until the early '90s we start to construct dams. So the level of the water raises a lot. But during those times there was just a small channel where the boats can go. That's why [inaudible 00:09:32] was such a flat boat, like a kind of a Viking boat in order to go in shallow waters. Okay? Nowadays, it's easier by track. Okay.
"1970 it was when we bought Graham's, for example, '45, one of the best vintages of all times. '63, also a great vintage year. That's why we also have here, it's a mix of history, but also important facts from the company or from the production of wine in generally. For example, I like this one, '86. It was not a great, great year, but it's my year of born. So I like it.
Austin beeman:
'78 is my year.
Quinta do bomfim tour guide:
"'78? I'm from '86. The wine one that year was awful. It's hard to find wines from there, but at least we have good people from '86.
Winery in here and because it's getting hard to find all the workers that we need in order for example to do this. The stomping on the traditional man or the traditional foot roll where people go barefoot stomping the grapes to produce all wines. We were obliged to introduce machinery because we could not fund all the workers. And if we need lots of manual labor at the vines, it's where we focus that manual labor if we don't have the enough numbers. So nowadays we have 10 different wineries with nine of those wineries, the wines are all produced under this system or similar systems. A system that replicates quite well the traditional stomping, the bare foot stomping.
"For example. Here we have six different stainless steel tanks that we call lagar with a total capacity of 12 tons and a half. And here these machines, they do the same thing. You won't notice a difference between this wines that are produced nowadays under this manner or the traditional one. And in order to do that in first before grapes go down, we need to select. To have the best ones inside. So when the grapes arrive here during September, during the whole harvest, there's a first stage where we select the grapes with the stem then and we slightly pre-crush the grapes and send them directly down into the lagar we have here, the very best ones. When the lagar is ready, the machine there that we see will came at once into each of the lagars and will do the stomping. In order to do the traditional manner and replicate that same work, two to three hours in a row, more or less.
"The machine has a system with lots of different parameters to replicate that same work. Some of the most important a press will start, at 80 kilos power pressing, no more than that. In general, it's the average weight of an adult. Then the surface that we'll do the stomping during all that time, it's a silicon surface. So we can have a tender surface, more or less like our own foot, that we'll do a softly extraction along of the time, but never crashing the seed, which is quite important or otherwise you will get bitterness into your wine. So the system, it's quite great, thus the same as the traditional stomping.
"And the big difference that happens then to produce a port or a red, it's that red wine or white wine. The alcohol content results from the whole sugar that we have on the grapes being transformed by the yeast into alcohol. So it takes a long time. Sometimes in a red wine it easily can goes up to 14, 15 days.
"On the other hand port, it's a fortified wine like Madeira, sherry or even muscatel. It means that something will be added into the fermentation in order to interrupt the fermentation, keep sugar and increase the alcohol amount. And normally that's why port fermentation maximal will go up to 48 hours, two days, okay? Because we need to keep a high volume of sugar. So when we found at that point that we have the right amount of sugar for that specific port, we will interrupt the fermentation. We'll add this wine spirit. And the wine spirit is also produced from leftovers of the wine production, okay? By regulation it should be neutral with no flavor, no color no aroma, but with a huge amount of alcohol. 77% that will immediately neutralize the yeast.
"These cannot survive into this alcoholic conditions. So we keep the sugar, residual sugar that it's still there and at the same time the amount of alcohol will increase. That's why port is between 18.5 to 21%. This is a big difference. The grapes are the same the way how we take care of them until we interrupt the fermentation. It's the same. After that point that we interrupt the fermentation, normally, nowadays, everything will be moved from the lagar into this room in here and then in this stainless steel tanks, we will still let the wine, the skins, all the thing from the fermentation still be intact and contact during a few more hours to better extract tannins, colors, flavors, the very good things that we enjoy in the wine. After that point, finally, we will separate the wine from all the solid parts, and easily after all of those tasks we have port. A young port that needs to age inside of old barrels.
"Inside of this building, you find in first three different kinds of barrels to age port. So in here this is a valsado. We call this valsado. Then they're in a row till the end of the room, that larger barrels, we call it tonel. And then here the small ones, pipa. And here we have two different styles of port. Actually there are three, but here we only have red ports. So at my left side balseiros, or toneis, they have ruby port inside. In the small barrels like those ones pipa, we do have toneis. And what's the big difference between a ruby and a tonei? Of course, the aging in here, in the rubies, they spend less time in, first of all aging a minimum of 18 months up to a maximum of six years. And by aging the wines in a short period of time inside of big vats, massive ones, you can have less air contact into the wine.
"Imagine instead of the whole barrel, just a small part of the whole wine that we've kept inside has always, or has been with oak contact. So it's suffering air contact at the same time some sub-oxidation and the wine and the oxidation changes your wine. Your wine will lost color. We lost flavors and we'll gain other kind of complexity along with beer. So by minimizing the oxidation, it's a process where we minimize the oxidation in the wines.
"Rubies in generally they get a ruby color or a kind of, they are fresh, fruity, and young. Then inside of the rubies, of course you find different categories in terms of quality. With vintage port being at the very top. Vintage port, it's not produced every year, but just when we do have a high quality year, a special year, normally to declare a vintage port, sometimes we need to wait between two to three years in order to know if this is a great year, that will be declared as a vintage.
"Even inside of the vintage world, you may have a classic vintage year. A vintage year that was mostly exceptional for the most of the producers. So they find a kind of agreement. And the port factory may declare a vintage year, a classic one. Or on the other hand you may find also single Quinta vintage, which means also high quality year, but not for everyone, for a few producers. And they may get a declaration through the Institute of Port in order to produce a single Quinta Vintage.
"Vintage maximum two years in oak aging bottle and non-filtered. So the wine will go aging inside of the bottle, a lot of years, up to centuries sometimes. And because it's an unfiltered wine, the wine has this capacity to age. And normally, yes, of course they will always go into a pike depending in the kind of vintage, but they will be conservator a lot of years, really centuries, it's not easy, but you can find vintage port from the 18, 19th century. You still can find some at the market. Of course, they should be quite expensive.
"Then after the vintage, you also have another Ruby Reserve, the Late Bottle Vintage, also a single harvest ruby-like vintage, but not with the same quality as the vintage. High quality still, but not the same amount of quality like in a vintage. And with more time aging here a minimum of four years into a maximum of six. But generally then when bottled, they are filtered. So the wine, it's being stabilized and ready to drink, not aging anymore inside of the bottle. But there are also unfiltered, Late Bottle Vintage. Those ones, they still go aging and keep aging inside of the bottle, more or less like a vintage, probably not for such a long time, but they still can get better inside of the bottle.
"Then find Ruby, Ruby Reserve, special reserve rubies. Those ones are all blends of different years that may arrive between three to six years old, ready to drink, not aging anymore inside of the bottle. Important thing to know, we minimize oxidation in the whole aging. So logically, when you open a bottle, when it's time to drink, you should drink them faster or the air contact will be damaging the wine more or less, like in a red wine, a vintage, it's really the one for a special occasion, two, three days maximum. If you have a core class system or something like that, you can enlarge it up to five days back. The wine at the very last drop won't be really the best one to drink. So in my opinion, vintage, we keep it for a special occasion. Best family, best friends, when it's time to open and drink the whole wine.
"Then the other rubies, it may arrive from two to sometimes eight weeks after open. It's better a wine cellar or at least the fridge, a constant temperature that allows you to preservate the wine. Okay? If you want to drink port every day and it's not a bad thing to do, Tommy's should be your choice because the aging here, it's slightly different. A smaller barrel in first, more oak contact in between the wines. So more oxidation, minimum aging, seven years. So a ruby could be transformed into a tonei. But then normally no limit. You may age a tonei for as many years as you decide as you wish. And of course how much time we keep the wine aging here, more and more oxidation so the wine will last color. So how older the colors tend to be gold and more ambush tones. And then the complexity of the flavors.
"Because we use old oak barrels and we let it age for such a long time, there will be a huge transformation in flavors inside of the barrel. In a ruby, you have lots of fresh fruit, jammy flavors, berries, strawberries that you can get. By minimizing the oxidation, you maintain freshness in your wines. On the other hand, here you'll go a little bit more into a dry side. You will start to find more nutty notes like almond, hazel nut, chestnut, peanut. But then honey, toffee, vanilla, coffee are quite common flavors in the toneis because we age them for a longer time, exposing them into a higher oxidation.
"Inside of the toneis of course, there are different categories too. You find also a single Arbus tonei, the only one from a single year that stands normally a long time aging. And when bottle mentioning year of bottling and year of harvest. So you know the precise age of the wine. All the other toneis, you don't know it. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, toneisis with indication of age, they are blends, okay? With generally not being an accurate average age, the indication of age, but more a minimal age indication into that blend, the younger wine that you may use to produce the blend.
"Then you may find also even fine toneis, your family reserve younger blends up to 10 years old, maximum the age of the wines. But any of those, when open, they will prepare good to drink during a longer time. Logically, a little bit more of oxidation will be an issue in the wine. So in between four, five weeks for a really young tonei, sometimes up to six, seven months in an old tonei, the wine will be still good to drink. That's why it's a better option to open a bottle and have at home when drink a glass whenever we want.
FOLLOW THE WINE ADVENTURE
Equipment:
Main Camera: Canon R8
2nd Camera: DJi Pocket 2
Travel Bag: Peak Design Travel Line Backpack 45L.
Camera Bag: Peak Design Everyday Messenger Bag.
Music Licensed from Epidemic Sound.
FTC Compliance: The team at Calhoun & Company Communications helped set up and coordinate this visit, but this is not sponsored by them.