One thing I really wanted to do while in Portugal was to do some port tasting. Unfortunately, I was neither in the right place in the country nor at the right time of year to do that.... easily. I had a vision in my head of walking into either a bar or an official tasting room and having a go at this "national" beverage. After several days of wandering around the countryside aimlessly hoping to stumble across such an establishment, I finally decided it was best to take matters into my own hands rather than continue to depend on chance.

I went to the hotel's front desk and asked the following question:

"Where can I go to try some different types of port?"

To which the very eager young man working the desk replied with an, "Ah!" and pulled out a map. This appeared promising already and I started to get excited.

With his pen, he circled a town that I was planning on visiting already that day. "EXCELLENT!" I cried. And before I had a chance to ask him to elaborate on this information so that I might get a more specific location, he circled another town... and then another.... at which point I realized with disappointed amusement that he had misunderstood my question. I tried to clarify my request:

"Yeah.. uhmmm.. When I said "port," I meant the drink... not where there are lots of boats and fish."

He apologetically explained that there is no such thing in the off season. I, still not deterred, discovered another way to skin this cat. It is called a liquor store. And "souvenir sized" port samples. (think mini bar). With these, the glamorous "PortLine" was created.



Honestly, I was very impressed with this solution. I was pretty fired up about drinking down the line... I had even written a score card ceremoniously into the "Notes" Section in the back of my Lonely Planet. And then came time to crack open the first mini bottle and the top just wouldn't come off, resulting in a new use for the corkscrew:



You are probably wondering how port is served in this situation. I like to think that when using this method, there is no need to wait for the port to breathe before sipping it. It has gotten plenty of air time.