Why "Pourt"? Because Portugal is very finicky about use of the "port" name in connection with any non-Portuguese product (more finicky, even, than the good people of Champagne, who will let you say "champagne-style" or "Methode Champenoise"). But we can't say "port-style"! Not sure yet if the new name for this wine will be Pourt, Purport, Sport, Blort, Trop, Pohrt, Pport, or something else, but Pourt is the current favorite (you heard it here first!).
Update:
The 2010 Pourt looks to be very good. The primary fermentation (in white, food-grade plastic pails) is finished, and now the still-fermenting must is in glass carboys, puffing out bubbles of CO2 every four seconds or so. The must will get a sugar feeding soon, in the continuing drive to squeeze out everything the yeasts can deliver before the alcohol content finally does them in. When the fermentation is finished, the yeast fall to the bottom in an honorable spent sludge. The wine is racked off into clean carboys, and the chemistry is checked again and adjusted. The fortifying liquor is added, along with some French oak (toasted to the "vanilla/caramel" stage in my oven). Then, the wine takes its beauty rest in my cellar. Bottling will be in perhaps 9 months.
We keep learning ways to use less and less added water, and this year's Pourt has a record low water addition. So the flavors should be concentrated, with a thick, unctuous mouthfeel.
The raw wine looks like blood, and is thick like blood. Come to think of it, it IS blood--the Earth's blood. Only from a plant instead of an animal.
When you think about everything a berry bush, or grapevine, has to know how to do, it's pretty amazing. It even approaches sentience. One could be forgiven for thinking that the plant world is pretty much on par with the animal world. Animals cannot take minerals from the soil and turn them into something useful to us (such as food, clothes, and shelter). Animals cannot isolate and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Plants are not just background wallpaper to an animal-dominated planet. They can influence animal behavior towards the plant's advantage. They can terraform the planet on a greater scale than animals can (say, in turning a fresh-frozen volcanic island into a tropical paradise). Arguably they can govern their lives better than we humans can govern ours. Think about that, as you wait for your pourt ;)
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