Port has been called “the Englishman’s drink”. Although true Port comes only from Portugal, it was the English who, in the 17th century, mastered the art of adding brandy to still-fermenting red wine to invent the sweet, strong, drink that today we call Port.
Port is a dramatic wine: fiery with alcohol, sweet with sugar, rich with red wine flavour; there is nothing on earth like it. This is winter-weight wine, warming the blood when the weather is cold. And port has its own image problems, partly because it is made in a bewildering variety of styles, qualities and prices.
Basic port begins with those labelled simply ruby or tawny. Both are bottled young, despite the word tawny suggesting some ageing. But if that is all the information provided, you are dealing with an entry-level product. They are pleasantly sweet, and quite possibly enjoyable, but these are not wines for grand occasions or long cellaring. Good port is expensive; if you find inexpensive port you can be sure it is not a finest examples of the breed. The label may proclaim “His Majesty’s Most Excellent Personal Selection” or words to that effect, but that is pure puffery. You need certain critical information on the label to understand the type and quality of what is in the bottle.
The first step up the quality ladder is Late-bottled Vintage Port (LBV), from a good but not great year, aged at the winery from four to six years. These are decent, flavourful, affordable wines, ready for drinking when purchased.
They may be cellared for a few years, but won’t benefit much from the process.
High-quality tawny port will have a ‘stated age’ on the label: Graham’s 10-year-old or Taylor’s 20-year-old Tawny are fine examples. These are blended from the winemaker’s old reserves; the age on the label is a weighted average of all the barrel-aged ports in the final blend. Expect to pay between $30 and $100 for these charming, sophisticated golden-amber gems, depending on their age. An interesting and relatively rare variation on Tawny Port is Colheita Port – an elegant aged tawny from a single harvest. The vintage year will be prominent on the front label, and somewhere – usually in small, hard-to-find print on the back – will be the bottling date. You do the math to figure out how old the wine is. These cost even more than good tawnies of stated age, the older they are the higher the price. Tawny and Colheita ports are ready for drinking when purchased; there is no benefit in ageing them further in your cellar.
Top of the pyramid is Vintage Port. Less than 2% of all port qualifies for this designation; their rarity and quality are reflected in their price. In a fine year, when there is a prime crop of healthy ripe grapes, producers may ‘declare’ a vintage for their finest wines. These ‘declared’ wines are bottled and sold when two years old, and must then be aged in your cellar for decades to reach their ultimate peak of perfection. Last Christmas I opened a Dow’s 1985 vintage, thirty years old and still dark and youthful, with decades of life ahead. You cannot hurry these wines; the vintage port you lay down today will be the wine of your old age. There is nothing finer than a great, mature vintage port by the fire on a winter’s evening, its splendid bouquet enveloping your senses, its rich flavours coating your mouth, its lingering finish commanding tranquil pause between anticipated sips… Ah! perfection worth waiting for!
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