Port is produced in the Duoro Valley in Portugal from several varities of grape, including touriga, mourisco and bastardo and some dark red varieties called the tintas, such as the tinta cao and the tinta francisca.
The two basic categories of port are vintage port and wood port. Vintage ports are aged two years in oak barrels and then bottled and aged usually for a minimum of ten years in a good vintage. The decision to produce a vintage port is made by the winemaker late in the season, between mid-September and mid-October, based on weather and the quality of the grapes.

Port is produced in the Duoro Valley in Portugal from several varities of grape, including touriga, mourisco and bastardo and some dark red varieties called the tintas, such as the tinta cao and the tinta francisca.
The two basic categories of port are vintage port and wood port. Vintage ports are aged two years in oak barrels and then bottled and aged usually for a minimum of ten years in a good vintage. The decision to produce a vintage port is made by the winemaker late in the season, between mid-September and mid-October, based on weather and the quality of the grapes.
The wood ports, which include the tawny, ruby and white ports, are aged in the barrel until they are ready to drink and are blended and mixed almost the way sherry is in the solera. Ruby is aged usually for two years and is ready to drink as soon as it is bottled. Tawny ports can be aged for many years in oak barrels and blended from many vintages. The long barrel-aging and occasional fining give the older tawny a light golden color.
Madeira from the Portuguese island of the same name is similar to port and sherry in that it is also fortified with brandy. Madeira was popular in colonial America because it was the least expensive of the imported wines. There are four types of Madeira, determined by the degree of sweetness and named after the grapes from which they are produced.
Beginning with the driest, they are “Sercial”, with a pale golden color and a rich aroma, “Verdelho”, sweeter than the Sercial but still on the dry side.
“Bual” medium brown in color and sweeter than the other two.
Malmsey or Malvasia, the sweetest and biggest-bodied.