About Port Wine

No wine is so complex, subtle, deep, flavorful, bold, and probably so misunderstood as Port.

Take all the flavor of a fine red wine, add the warmth of a good brandy, balance with the body of natural grape sweetness, and season with extract of oak barrels. Bottle and age, then drink at room temperature by the fireplace on a cold winter night. Feel it warm you from the inside out.

For centuries, Port, the original from Portugal, has been a favorite of connoisseurs and only recently has it acquired the reputation in this country of being a wino’s wine because of its high alcohol content and low price (when made in bulk and bottled in hip flasks). But when made from premium grapes and properly aged, it is incomparable. In order to distinguish itself from the undistinguished screw-cap stuff, producers of real Port from Portugal, have recently begun referring to their produce as Porto.

Technically, true Port only comes from the Duoro region of Portugal in the same way that Idaho potatoes come only from Idaho, but its popularity has created many offspring in many wine producing districts. The best examples still come from Portugal, but notable imitations have been produced in Australia, California, New York, and even Missouri.

Port was first made in the late 1600s when shippers began adulterating their red wines with a splash of grape brandy in each barrel to preserve the wine on the journey to England and to strengthen it to suit the tastes of wealthy English merchants. For the next 150 years the Portugese wineries, called lodges, experimented with fortifying their wines with varying amounts of brandy, and by the mid 1800s they had developed the current technique of adding raw, unaged, high-proof, grape distillate to the wine while it is still fermenting. 

When that is done, the yeasts, which turn sugar to alcohol, stop fermenting. When the addition of brandy raises the alcohol content above 14%, working conditions become intolerable to yeasts swimming around in their own waste products. The natural-grape sugar that remains unfermented stays in the wine. Today most Ports are fortified to 18-20% alcohol (40 proof) with about 5-10% residual sweetness.

Most Port is red wine, although there is white port and even pink port. In its youth, it is royal purple, harsh, grapey, with an anise-like fragrance and a burning aftertaste from unaged brandy. But with the proper combination of aging, blending, or both, the flavors marry.

 

Because of its high alcohol content, Port ages extremely well in the bottle. Alcohol and sugar are very effective preservatives, and Port has both. I have tasted Port more than 100 years old that was still a bright, youthful color.

There are a myriad of variations on the production process, and Port can vary tremendously from vintage to vintage and producer to producer. Port producers can control the style of the product by changing the grape types, ripeness at harvest, the amount of brandy added, the time the brandy is added, the length of aging before bottling, the blending before bottling, and the type of cask used for aging.

Many varieties of grapes are allowed to be used in making Port, including a few unusual varieties of red grapes with red juice (most red grapes have white juice, and wines made from them get their color from the skins). The most widely used grapes are the Tinta Cao (pronounced CAW-en), Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz (called Tempranillo in Spain, the grape behind Rioja reds), Tinta Barroca, Sousao (soo-SA-ewn), and Tinta Amarela.

White Port is made from white grapes in a similar manner to red Port. It can range from straw to yellow in color, and can be fairly dry, 3-5% sugar by volume. White Port can age for 5-10 years, but is best drunk when fresh, slightly chilled.

Ruby Port is reddish in color because it is bottled before the color has had a chance to shift toward brown, which is what normally happens to red wines during aging. Rubies usually are blends of wines whose average age is about four years. The wine part of the wine-brandy mix tends to dominate the flavor, and the sugar content tends to be higher than in other Port. Ruby Port ages gracefully for 5-10 years, but is usually quite drinkable when young.

Tawny Port gets its name from the pale brownish color it turns from longer aging in wood barrels. In practice, tawny Port ranges in color from garnet to brick to onion skin to mahogany. Individual shippers will often produce half a dozen or more different tawnies varying in dryness, wine-brandy balance, and age.

Generally, tawnies are less sweet than rubies, and a bit more complex because of the wood contact. Technically any Port that spends 5-10 years in a barrel is tawny because contact with air in the staves and in the airspace in the barrel will oxidize the wine and change its color, browning the liquid like an apple is browned by air after a bite is taken. Once in the bottle, it will continue to age well for a dozen years or so, but not much is lost by drinking tawny Port when purchased. Most people drink tawny at "cellar temperature", about 55F, but many people drink their tawny chilled.

Vintage Port is technically a ruby since it is usually bottled within two years, while the color is still purple-red. Portuguese wineries do not always put a vintage date on the bottle, preferring to blend wines from different harvests as is the practice with sparkling wines from Champagne, France. Occassionally, if an individual winery decides the crop is so good, and if the market is receptive, a small quantity will be kept unblended and bottled within two years with the harvest year on the label. By Portuguese law, vintage-dated Port must show the bottling date. Vintage Port usually needs a minimum of 15 years of age before the disparate flavors begin to marry, and it may need 50 years to peak, although I have found that most are drinkable within 20 years. This is the type you set aside for your child’s wedding or 21st birthday.

Usually these wines throw a thick, crusty sediment that clings loosely to the sides of the bottle and they need to be decanted. The formation of this crust lightens the color somewhat, and is crucial to the aging process. One Port shipper reputedly will fire any cellar employee who touches a bottle of vintage Port in the aging cellars before 15 years have passed. Because vintage Port is less than 10% of the Portuguese output, it is scarce and expensive.

This is vintage Port that has been kept in the barrel longer than other vintage Port. It picks up some of the tawny hue of the barrel, some of the complexity and flavor of a well-aged, vintage Port, and is easier to drink when young than vintage Port. It always bears two dates, the date of the harvest (vintage) and the date of bottling. It is less expensive than vintage Port, and usually offers excellent value.

Port of the Vintage (the emphasis is on the word "of") is a tawny, wood-aged Port that may have spent 15 years or more in a barrel that has been topped off to replace evaporation numerous times, and is likely blended from many vintages dating back to the date the label it says it is "of." Usually there will be a bottling date in smaller numerals, so watch out for those seemingly ancient Ports for under $15. They were probably born a long time ago, blended liberally, and are really fine old tawnies bottled recently. The grape character of these Ports is subdued, and the well-aged brandy flavor dominates.

There are many producers. Some of the better estates to look for are Crofts, Dow, Taylor, Cockburn, Noval, Graham, Barros, Kopke, Calem, Delaforce, Sandeman, Warre, Fonseca, and Da Silva.

As with most wines, Ports are best stored in cool spaces with minimal temperature fluctuations.

A well-made Port can be the perfect finish to a meal. Try some with chocolates, pastries, canoles, cakes, dried fruits, nuts, and especially roasted chestnuts on a cold winter night. One of the absolute best combinations is with blue veined cheeses such as Stilton and Gorgonzola. The combination of the salty cheese and sweet wine is heavenly.