Making Taylor's Port Wine

And the greatest secret of vintage port is keeping things simple and one of the beauties of traditional foot treading is that it's a method which has been perfected over centuries where it is the method that most respects the grapes that we're working with and the tail wire. The method does not vary from one of our wineries to another so the difference in style of vintage port from one quinta to another is totally down to the different tail wire because the method is the same. Here we can see a lagar which is, it was cut last night so this lagar was filled and picked yesterday. Last night the first treading went on and a fundamental sign of a well-cut lagar is having all of the seeds sitting on the surface. This is a fascinating year by the sheer quantity of seed, it's a good sign. They're very brown, very dark, well seasoned and absolutely beautiful looking lagar. Here we've got a lagar which is at its final stage of fermentation. This is waiting to be fortified so at the moment it's not being worked. You can see the boards across, these boards are here to work the fermenting must with what we call the macacos, the wooden plungers. Once the fermentation starts there is no more treading going on in the lagar and all of the work is done with the plunging and you can see again the skins have been worked hard to release all of the colour and the tannin, you know a bit of a pulp sitting on the surface nice and hot. It's going to make an incredible port. This is the birth of a young which was so good to protect.