Warm days and cool nights define autumn, but don’t always allow the season to define your wine.
Whites, roses and reds are fashionable any time of year.
But there’s always an exception to this rule, and for many of us, cooler weather is definitely a hallmark of port season. Before you dismiss the idea of after-dinner wines or port, read on, and maybe you, too, will find a place for these soul-warming wines on a cold night.
Port is a fortified wine that originated in the late 1600s in the northern region of Portugal known as the Douro Valley, although there are outstanding ports from around the world.
Like all wine, port is made by allowing grapes to ferment. Once the fermenting grapes reach an alcohol content of 6 to 8 percent, the wine is then fortified with brandy. It is brandy in the most basic sense, however – an un-oaked, distilled-grape spirit of 77 percent alcohol, also known as aguardente. The addition of aguardente stops fermentation by killing off the live yeast and leaving a residual sugar content of 90 grams per liter and a final alcohol content of 17 to 22 percent.
There are essentially two main types of port wine – ruby and tawny – and they are almost always a blend of unfamiliar grape varieties. One exception is white port, which is fairly uncommon and is best suited to summer cocktails.
Ruby ports can be described as dark, inky, ripe, fresh, rich and, of course, sweet. In the late 1600s, the British brought these rich, sweet wines to market to be enjoyed as an after-dinner drink or dessert.
Tawny port differs drastically as a result of long barrel-aging. Because of the long time spent in a cask, tawny ports are lighter in color due to the effects of oxidation, with notes of toffee, caramel, chocolate, raisins and nuts.
When it comes to port, there are various tiers of quality, almost always dictated by cost. The least expensive, entry-level ruby ports typically spend less than a year in cask and do not improve with bottle-aging. These wines are ripe and fresh, with notes of blackberries and pepper. The next price level is referred to as “crusted port.” These ports are blends of high-quality years, aged up to four years in cask and bottled without filtration. The name is derived from the sediment left in the bottle, which contributes to bottle maturation. Also important to note, the date on the bottle denotes when the wine was bottled and not the vintage.
Moving further up the price ladder, late-bottled vintages, or LBVs, are made from a single vintage from a good year. Typically lighter than vintage port and far more affordable, these wines are ready for consumption upon release, but they will also improve for an additional 5 to 6 years.
On the top tier of ruby port, vintage port is only made in the best of years, and the vintage will be boldly declared on the label. It is bottled within two years, and because of longer bottle-aging versus cask-aging, it retains a ripe and fruity freshness that can age for up to 30 years.
Entry-level tawny ports typically spend about 8 years in-cask and are similar in price to entry-level ruby ports. Moving up in price, aged tawny port comes in 10-, 20-, 30- and (rarely) 40-year-old varieties. These wines are racked (transfered from cask to cask), and as time passes, so does the deep dark color of ruby port, with 20-year tawny regarded as the most ideal.
Some people are scared off by the sweetness of port wines, but try serving them after dinner. Ruby ports pair best with chocolate desserts, while tawny ports pair best with tarts or pecan or pumpkin pie. I will guess that any sweet-toothed skeptic will enjoy port as much as – if not more than – dessert itself.
Alan Cuenca is an accredited oenophile and owner of Put a Cork in It, a Durango wine store. Reach him at info@putacorkinit.org.
