When we recovered from a Pro Wein Trade fair in the early 2000s, we had the opinion that not enough attention was paid to Port. Even at specialised trade fairs, Port is always served when everything else has already been tasted (and attention is no longer at an all-time high).
So we set out to organise a Portweinmesse, but with all the ifs and whens. As we had already experienced at some fairs some sub-optimals, our claim was to do this ‘great or not at all’. Good water, good air, Ports at the right temperature, proper glassware and, last but not least, the best producers.
Initially focussing on the latest Vintage Port vintage, the Portweinmesse is now exactly what the name promises: a Portweinmesse. Although there are also a few selected Douro still wines and sweet wines from a few very selected german producers, the focus is and remains on Port.
WE ARE:
As an enthusiastic Port ambassador, Axel Probst believes that his favourite beverage receives far too little attention. Being the author of the German reference book Portwein, he realised that there are only a few Ports since 1900 that he has not yet written a tasting note about. In 2023, Axel united the leading port wine houses for the second time in his O-PORT-UNIDADE project to bottle a joint Vintage Port as a charity project. The first edition of the 2013 vintage achieved 94PP and 100.000 Euros in donations, which helped children and young people in the Douro Valley to receive a better education through the Bagos Douro organisation. Axel is one of the very few Fidalgo Calvalheiros in the Port wine brotherhood and has been voted ‘Best Port Critique of the World’ by tastingbook three times in a row. For more than two decades, Axel has been trying to understand why Port virtually disappeared from restaurant menus and wine cellars in German-speaking countries after the World War II.
Christopher Pfaff has discovered his passion for port wine some 15 years ago. After many visits to the city of Porto and the Douro Valley, he published the first German-language travel guide to the world's most beautiful wine region in 2015. As Cavalheiro of the Port Wine Brotherhood, he tries to explain in this country that port wine is not ‘rocket science