Port is one of those drinks that, for some reason, has become entwined with Christmas in the UK. Perhaps it’s the rich, fruity, slightly spiced flavour of the fortified wine that makes it feel so festive, or the fact that Christmas is the only time of year when it somehow feels essential to have a bottle of Port (or indeed sherry, Baileys or Armagnac) on hand for various parties, meals and after-dinner drinking sessions. But with so many Ports on offer in the supermarkets around Christmas it can be hard to know which bottle to go for.
While all Port comes from the Duoro Valley in northern Portugal, the quality can vary massively. Bottles can fetch thousands of pounds, but at the cheaper end of the spectrum there’s no easy way of distinguishing between a low-quality Port that simply tastes like a ropey red wine with an aftertaste of pure alcohol and a genuinely good bottle that offers fantastic value for money. That’s why we courageously blind-tasted our way through them, scoring each bottle based on flavour alone, to find the best bottles of Port for Christmas that come in under £25. Read on to see which ones came out on top.
