Croft Port Harvest

It is late September and vintage time. Year after year, the pickers return to work in the vineyards by day and tread the grapes to the sound of an accordion trough the evening. The grapes are briefly crushed, then tipped into wide, shallow granite tanks known as lagares. Feet washed, the traders climb in and thread rythmically backwards and forwards. The air is pungent with the smell of crushed grapes. At the right moment, when the yeasts have turned about half the grapes' sugar into alcohol, it's time for fortification. Colourless, neutral, young grape spirit is added - and the fermentation stops, leaving the unfermented sugar as luscious sweetness in the made port.
2019-2021