Port - the sweet drink from Portugal

• The name of the country of Portugal comes from the castle of Portucale in the Douro region of Northern Portugal. Mateus Rose was the pink drink of the Sixties and Seventies, a Portuguese rose wine which the British found reliable, appealing and attractive. The bottle features a Portuguese palace of villa, and you could even buy a cheap kit to convert your stable, wide-bottomed, curvy green bottle into a table lamp.
• So if you ever had a bottle of Mateus Rose, you will recognise the company name on the bottle, Sogrape. (Sounds like so grape!) Mateus is a village and a palace. People tried to tell me that Mateus was a popular plebs drink but if Queen Elizabeth II had it when dining at the Savoy for lunches in the 1970s and 1980s, then it is good enough for me. Mateus also featured in a song 'getting juiced on Mateus', the Yellow Brick Road by Elton. The same company has Sandeman Port, 20, 30 or 40 years old.  
•  www.sograpevinhos.eu
• Port is very strong, 20% alcohol, so a little glass goes a long way.
• If you are going to stay in Portugal look for a chance to book one or more of the Pousadas, historic buildings converted into hotels.
• Want to stay at a winery? Quinta Nova has a hotel restaurant. You can have wine tasting, follow a walking trail or take boat trips down the river. The estate is run by ladies.
• www.quintanova.com
• One name you are likely to recognise is Cockburn's port. The name goes back a long way. The company was founded in 1815 in Portugal's second city, Porto. The founder was Robert Cockburn, who was from a Scottish family, and who served under the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular war, in Portugal. 
• I liked the Cockburn's Special Reserve which costs only about £14 in supermarkets. Sometimes there's a special deal and you can find it reduced to £10-12. This port comes from the Symington Family Estates. Another port to look for is the Graham's Six Grapes with the symbol of a bunch of six grapes on the label. The six grapes means top quality, a bit like a five star hotel. 
• Port is always sweet, or sweetish. and tastes great with dark chocolate or chocolate mousse and cheeses such as Stilton or a ripe white cheddar.
• Rafa means red in Latin and Rufo means drum in Portuguese, which you might guess from the drum on the label. (See my picture of the bottle above.)
• Another company is Nieport. The name is pronounced like knee-port. One of their amusing labels is Drink Me.

More details from:

www.wine-partners.at