Advice for newbie wanting to make port

[FlatVintner]

In addition to making wines something more specific that I would really like to try making is a port.

There seem to not be that many port wine kits and not a huge amount of guidance on how to approach making a port. Could anyone suggest any web pages or books which discuss making a port?

 

[drainsurgeon]

You are probably going to get quite a variety of advise on this one. I just made my first port about 3 months ago and had a lot of questions also.

If reading is what you're looking for, Techniques in Home Winemaking by Daniel Pambianchi has got a chapter (10) on making port wine. It's only 6 pages but has all the basics explained pretty well. The whole book is good reading and can be found at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Ebay.

ECKraus has this article on high alcohol wines. http://eckraus.com/wine-making-high-alcohol/

Also Jack Keller's site has some good recipe's. He goes into great detail explaining them.

I made a batch of Raspberry Chocolate Port (found on Keller's site). What I did was run the ABV up as high as I could with EC1118 and step feeding sugar till the yeast finally quit at around 19%. I then fortified with Brandy to 22%. It's bulk aging right now but I think it's going to be a winner.

Good luck and have fun with it.