NO RETURN
Once you discover vintage port, there's no going back By Nancy Ross Ryan
Photo by Laurie Proffitt
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PORT OF NO RETURN Once you discover vintage port, there's no going back By Nancy Ross Ryan |
Photo by Laurie Proffitt |
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Every once in a while (this may happen to us all), I am made aware of an oversight so crucial to my gustatory well-being that I can only call it a case of critical neglect. And I have been guilty -- until now -- of not drinking one of the world's most noble fortified wines. I mean port. Real port from Portugal. Not port-style wines from America, Australia, or South Africa -- not that there's anything wrong with them. They're just not in the same league with port from Portugal where, since the 1600s, the robust red wines of the Douro River Valley have been fortified with brandy, and shipped abroad as port. In the 1700s, so much was shipped to England that it became known as "Englishman's wine."
So, I can forgive myself somewhat because the English have a three-hundred-year-old tradition of drinking and appreciating port. But, according to market estimates, port consumption in the United States has risen 400% during the last decade -- from 100,000 cases eight years ago to 400,000 cases now. I dined recently at the home of a friend who is among the astute Americans enjoying a few bottles from those 400,000 cases. My host served an awesome Stilton (England's only name-protected cheese -- by law, nobody else can call a blue cheese Stilton) with a more awesome 1980 vintage port. The wine was deep purple in the glass and, while it smelled of ripe, maybe overripe, berries and plums, the flavor was anything but fruity -- more like dark chocolate, tea, coffee, currants -- you had to be there. At that moment I decided to make up for lost time. Life is too short to not drink great port. Great port means vintage or aged tawny port -- not ruby, or white ports.
The greatest of all ports, vintage port, I discovered, can be reasonably expensive. I say reasonably because when you consider the quality of the grapes, the amount of labor and the length of time that go into making a bottle of vintage port, you soon realize that it's one of the world's great bargains. $50 to $100, sometimes more, for a bottle of wine made only from grapes that come from a near-perfect harvest, which happens only about three times in every decade, doesn't seem excessive. And often, believe it or not, these grapes can be mostly foot-trodden, rather than mechanically pressed. Foot-trodden means just what it says. The grapes are pressed in vats for several hours by (clean) human feet. I asked Adrian Bridge, the managing director of Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman/Fonseca Guimnaraens, "What's the point?" He replied, "The human foot is good, perhaps best, at pressing on grapes to extract all the color and flavor in the skin without breaking the pits -- which is where the bitter tannins are."
Foot-trodden or not, these vintage-year wines spend two years in a cask, and require decades to mature in the bottle before drinking. According to F. Paul Pacult in Kindred Spirits(Hyperion, 1997) the Taylor Fladgate 1985 Vintage Porto (which has his four-star "highly recommended" mark) will be ready to drink five to ten years from now. Warre's 1991 Vintage Porto (also gets his four-star) won't be ready for another 10 to 15 years. There are many three-star ("recommended"), and four star ("highly recommended") ports among his favorites. As far as I am concerned, it's safe to call these great. But there are only a handful to get his five-star ("highest recommendation") rating. I call these "See-You-In-Court Ports". When you consider how long -- sometimes 40 to 50 years -- it takes for each of these to reach maturity (drinkability), you realize that they could easily be included in someone's will -- and contested. ("Uncle Mortimer never intended to leave his 1927, 1963, 1977, 1983s and those heavenly 1994s to Claude. Obviously, he wasn't competent when he signed the will.")
The only drawback to a vintage port is that it is usually bottled without filtration, so it deposits sediment in the bottle. It needs to be decanted before drinking, and it should be consumed within 24 hours.
But Wait! There are other great ports with some age on them, and a wonderful invention. Aged tawny ports are aged in wooden casks for extremely long periods -- 10, 20, 30 and 40 years -- and blended with younger and older wines. The age stated on the label is an average of the wines in the blend. These wines are amber rather than red or purple and their flavors range from hazelnut to spice to butterscotch to caramel to honey. They don't need decanted, and they may be consumed for three weeks or so after opening.
The wonderful invention mentioned earlier is Late Bottled Vintage Port, perfect for people who want the complexity of a vintage port without either the high price tag or the inconvenience of decanting. A bottle of LBV costs around $25. It was invented in 1965 (released in 1969) by Taylor Fladgate, and says Bridge, "Our Late-Bottled Vintage is foot-trodden." According to Pacult, "Taylor is the firm that first developed the Late-Bottled Vintage category. LBVs are ports composed of several wines from one vintage that are kept in wood from four to six years prior to bottling." These ports (which, like any vintage ports, vary in quality from year to year) don't need to be decanted, are ready to drink upon opening, and the opened bottle stays fresh for three weeks or so.
Now that I am making up for lost time, how do I serve them, these noble ports? A little cool, a smidgen below room temperature, because they warm in the glass. (Don't refrigerate aged ports; store the bottle in a cool, dark place). About a 2-ounce pour in a port glass, which looks like a miniature red Bordeaux glass. (I've also used a Sherry glass and Aunt Alice's fancy etched cordial glasses.) Aged tawny ports, LBV and vintage ports go wonderfully well with cheese (See "Beyond Stilton"). I drink a youngish tawny as an aperitif, an LBV or a vintage after dinner with dessert -- chocolate, nuts and dried fruits, creme brulee or creme caramel. Or -- keeping life simple -- on their own in place of dessert as the perfect finish to the meal.
The good news is that 1994 is now considered to be one of the best vintages of the past 50 years. The bad news is that the following 1994 vintage ports, ranked by Stephen Tanzer as "Superstars," won't be ready to drink for decades:
The same long wait applies to his second tier of "Excellent 1994s": |
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Port
Farmhouse Cheddar
Parmesan Reggiano
Camembert
Brie |
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LIQUID ASSETS - December 2000
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