April 22, 2019 – Porto, Portugal
Today was another day on our own. A few days back I looked into touring a Port Wine Cellar since Porto is the home of Port Wine. We decided to visit the Sandeman Cellars.
Uber was our initial thought on getting to the cellar. We were outside the port at 8:20 am and decided a 6.5 mile walk was a great way to start the day so we headed out on foot. Sandeman didn’t open until 10 am anyway. The port was in Leixoes and Sandeman was in Porto.
Nice waterfront and a bit cleaner than Lisbon.
This piece of art would go well with some of the music we have heard on the ship.
We walked through some very quiet neighborhoods off of the main roads.
Some obvious well off neighborhoods and others not so well off. Some of the condos we saw looked like they belonged in the former USSR or the former East Germany. The kind of beauty only communism can produce.
As we got closer to Porto the buildings became a lot more colorful and interesting.
We arrived at Sandeman at 10:20 am.
We took a tour with this nice young lady as our guide.
We learned a lot about Port Wine. Most of the world recognizes Portugal as the source of Port. The USA does not. Anything can be called Port.
Port is a wine where the fermentation process is interrupted midway through by the addition of brandy. Brandy with high alcohol content and little if any flavor. Complete fermentation is when the yeast dies in its own waste – alcohol (about 1 week). Adding Brandy raises the alcohol level prematurely and kills off the yeast before all of the sugar is converted to alcohol. This leaves a sweeter tasting wine with almost double the alcohol level of regular wine. This wine goes well with sweets or as a dessert itself. If you are wondering about Sherry, it has gone through a complete fermentation process and is fortified with brandy after.
All of the Ports, save the vintage, are blends and the 10, 20, and 30 year marks on the bottle indicate the average age of the blended ports. Each year the grape crop is analyzed and if the quality is high enough, a vintage port is made. The cellar here contained vintage ports from as early as 1904.
The sampling was next.
Here is a white, ruby, and tawny. The difference between ruby and tawny has to do with how it is aged and where it is aged. The ruby spends time aging in the huge barrels shown above. Exposure to air through the wood is minimal. The tawny is aged in the smaller barrels and the exposure to air through the wood is greater and it spends more time aging than the ruby.
It was fun to sample but we made no purchases. Terri liked the tawny and I liked the ruby.
It was time for lunch and Terri picked a place about 3/4 a mile away. We walked back across the river, through some winding alleys and up to a little restaurant.
No much english was spoken in this restaurant and it was a challenge ordering. The food was very good. I did see Super Bock all over town and decided to try one. Not sure what happened with the spelling on the bottom label. Too much sampling?
It was after 1 pm and all aboard was 3:30 pm. We decided we would walk back and enjoy the scenery by the river. After a mile or so I realized that we were short on time and were cutting it too close. We could do the 6.5 miles in two hours but any delay and we could miss the ship. We decided to call an Uber.
Evening entertainment was “Pianist with the Hair”. It was billed as “Carnegie Hall meets Saturday Night Live” with Julian G. Steinway artist and International Piano sensation.
His playing was adequate but not outstanding. A little trouble keeping his hands playing together. His humor was well done and probably necessary. I was entertained. Terri gave him a 2.…