Pellicular Maceration
A white wine making technique that consists of the maceration of the grape skins with the must. This technique reduces the acidity and enriches the content with colloidal substances. The grapes are crushed and stripped from the stalks and then maintained during 5 to 18 hours at a cool temperature (18ºC or even less). This term is not applied to reds since the fermentation of these wines is done with the pellicules in contact with the must.

Pedrenã (or Arinto)
The Arinto de Bucelas grape variety is grown all over the region, albeit it highest quality is achieved in the more interior parts of the country. It produces medium to very sugary musts and with relatively high levels of organic acids; the wines have a citrus or citrus-straw colour, rich aromas that range from citrus through ripe apple and pear to hints of flowers (lantanas). It is also associated with fresh, harmonious, full-bodied and persistent flavours. It is a very robust grape variety that assimilates well with the majority of the grafts used in the region. However, it is generally not very fertile, on average producing one blossom per shoot. Nevertheless it produces very large, heavy and compact bunches that makes this grape variety produce good/very good yields. It is a medium-budding variety (after the Loureiro and before the Batoca and Trajadura) and medium-ripening (followed by the Avesso, Loureiro and Batoca, after the Alvarinho and Trajadura and before the Azal Branco).

Pulp
The succulent section inside the grape made up of delicate cells that contain grape juice.

Port Vintage
A special category of Port Wine, considered the top in terms of quality. A dark coloured wine of very high quality made from one single harvest and bottled between the second and third year post harvesting. It requires approval from the Institute of Douro and Port Wine and unlike the Tawny, the Vintage ages in bottles.

Press
Apparatus used to squeeze the must from the grapes through a crushing motion. There are several types of presses (vertical, horizontal, pneumatic, hydro-pneumatic) that are used to extract the must in the vinification of whites, or obtaining press wine in the vinification of reds. When pressing the wine it is important to measure carefully the pressure applied so as not to damage excessively the grapes nor extract the herbaceous flavours and essential oils of the skins and pips.

Producer
Person (owner, winemaker) that harvests the grapes himself. Unlike the negóciant, a person that buys the wine already made, the producer makes his own wine. Therefore the term can be used to identify both a small wine producer or a historic winery that owns its vineyards.

Port Wine
A fortified wine that originates from the mountainous Upper Douro region, 100 km from the coast, in valleys carved out by the Douro river and its tributaries. A Port - like the chianti and the châteauneuf-du-pape - is a wine that is derived from a complex mixture of grape varieties. Some white varieties are grown such as the Donzelinho, Esgana-Cão, Malvasia Fina, and Códega enabling the production of White Port. It is however the reds such as Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinto Cão, Touriga Nacional, Touringa Francesa, and Bastardo, that are the most important. When only a third of the sugars that exist in the must have been converted into alcohol by the yeast, the fermentation process is interrupted. The wine is sweet and currently has a richness of 9º Baumé. Winemakers must master this technique because the key to making a Port is sparing a good part of the natural sugars from fermentation. To accomplish this, the must needs to be removed from the vats and, after racking, placed into tonels where wine spirit with an alcohol content of 75º-78º is added in order to stop the fermentation. At the beginning of Spring, the racking of the wines takes place again and later they are transported to the large aging cellars at Vila Nova de Gaia, a town situated on the southern bank of the Douro river, near the city of Porto. At one time, a 1926 regulation made it compulsory to mature and age the Port wines in these historic locations. Today, the law allows Ports to age in the Douro region. Ports age in large oak or chestnut casks called pipas that hold up to 434 litres. Only a few years ago, one could still see the typical Rabelo boats with their large square sails transporting these large pipas from the Douro to Vila Nova de Gaia. Today, the dams that have been built along the Douro no longer permit this traditional transportation and the pipas from the Alto Douro must be brought by truck, duly accompanied with a Certificate of Origin. As in all fortified wines, Ports have an infinite variety of mixtures and combinations. The manager of the adega will taste them during 18 months and then decide on their fate. This is the reason why there are different types of ports: ruby, tawny, late bottled, vintage or even the sublime vintages, that have all the personality of the year of their harvest.