Victoria Moore enjoys more port than she should
Boswell struggled by on a daily ration of two pints of port, and after three days in Oporto I am beginning to wonder how he managed to restrain his appetite.
I have drunk ruby ports, late-bottled vintages, tawnies of several ages and a fine vintage or two, not to mention white ports with their tantalising aromas of tropical fruits and the deliciously refreshing "Splash", an invention of the House of Sandeman, whose guest I am.
The Splash (one part white port, one part tonic water, ice, slice of lemon) tastes particularly good with salted almonds at noon on a baking day in the Douro Valley, east of Oporto beyond the Marao mountains. The Douro was the world's first demarcated wine-producing region and the quiet river threads between hillsides crimped with terraces bearing vines whose grapes are, for the most part, destined to become port.
Just now, however, I am dining in the splendour of the Factory Club - a gentleman's establishment so select it has only 28 members. And no wonder. To join, one must be English, live in the Oporto district and play a significant part in the port industry. An interloper, I am feeling decidedly anxious and not least because I am awaiting the results of the written exam on port and port-making I took this afternoon.
To my left, George Sandeman, the chairman of Sandeman and a shrewd and jolly fellow, is making merry. At some distance from me is Carlos Silva, the company's head taster and master blender. Carlos proudly wears his oversized moustache, the ends of which have been teased and waxed to fine points that quiver gently whenever his expert nostrils hover over a wine glass.
After the close of dinner, we repair to a second dining room, the better to enjoy our vintage port. Carlos's whiskers tremble madly as a 1960 vintage is poured from a decanter. I am somewhat in awe of this master who, only this morning, bore witness to my sorry attempts at blending. I was given a white overall, a measuring cylinder, an empty glass, three bottles of port and a sample. My task was to match the sample by blending the three wines in proportions to be divined by my nose and tastebuds. It might sound very Generation Game (certainly I finished up with red port all over my white overalls, having drunk too much, and with a mixture that tasted nothing like it was meant to), but for Carlos this sort of thing is bread and butter. A head taster "checks" samples from the oak casks in which his wine is ageing every day. He is expected to ensure that the flavour of any given brand remains constant though the wines from which it is made will taste different year on year.
As if I wasn't worried enough about my impending exam result, George Sandeman now announces that after dinner there will be dancing in the sprung ballroom. If anything is fortifying, port is, so I pour myself another slug, taking comfort in the knowledge that, as well as the wine, there is some serious alcohol in here. Port was originally fortified with brandy to help it travel well. (That was in the days when grape-growers with healthy gentlemanly interests built their stone lagars deeper so that women treading the grapes would have to hitch their skirts up higher.) Now a grape alcohol (77 per cent volume) is added to the grape juice to halt fermentation after two or three days because it tastes good that way.
Back in the ballroom, my worst fears are justified. A group of students are playing rousing traditional songs on tambourines, cellos and mandolins. There is none of that dreadful disco dancing favoured by the French and Italians as they fling themselves about like string puppets, but nevertheless when a young man takes my hand and leads me on to the floor, I repeatedly stand on his feet. At least the exam results were better, although my suspiciously immaculate 50 out of 50 suggests that the examiner had also been drinking too much late-bottled vintage.
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