At Geyser Peak, the winemakers turn out 400 to 500 cases per year of their Shiraz-style port. It's a unique and interesting product, and it's fun for us to make. And according to Schroeter, port seems to be catching on in the United States. We mainly sell 375-milliliter bottles through our tasting room, but we've seen an increase in sales recently. Only ruby ports can be vintage ports.
Tawnies are blends of wines from several years.
They get their golden-brown color from spending more time in the wooden cask before bottling, and tend to be drier and less fruity than rubies, leaning more to butterscotch or caramel. A good tawny is the product of skillful blending, and the growers and winemakers of Portugal prize it highly. Vintages are expected to vary, but a winemaker's skill and craft shines through in the ability to produce consistent tawnies from year to year. Because tawnies are filtered before they are bottled, further aging won't change their taste. Colheitas are blended from wines of a single year, but are aged in wood for at least seven years, and are also filtered before bottling.