Port

By Condé Cox

[A modified version of this article appeared in Portland Monthly magazine in 2007]

Port has for centuries has been thought of as the drink of choice at stuffy old men’s clubs, where cigar-chomping fully-girthed gray-haired guys sit around perfecting their imitations of Citizen Kane. But the truth is that Port, along with the likes of Champagne and Burgundy and Bordeaux, is among the world’s greatest wines, and the time has long past for giving homage to the great wine that is Port.

Port is made in warm-climate northern Portugal, where thick-skinned grapes ferment into intensely concentrated wines that could never be confused with a delicate cool climate wine. Woven into this ripe fruit base are two most unusual guests that are not found together in any other wine: high residual sugar and elevated alcohol from added distilled spirits. Port is therefore somewhat shocking to the uninitiated, because it is dark and red but very sweet and alcoholic. And what makes this story so appealing is the way that Port wine integrates and combines these flavors and seemingly disparate senses into an elegant, seamless wine.

Port is made in two very different styles, a brown-tinted one, called Tawny Port, and a purple-colored one called Ruby Port. Tawnies, sometimes called ‘wood port,’ are aged for decades in large wooden casks before bottling, and they often taste of dried fruits; Rubies, which are aged in bottle, taste like fresh fruit and demonstrate immense concentration. Tawnies are lighter and quaffable, while Rubies are to be savored and sipped. Both go with aged cheeses, mousse patés, and chocolates of every style and form.

Port wine sugar comes from a unique production method, by which the addition of distilled spirits halts the normal winemaking process at about the halfway mark, thereby preserving high natural grape sugars that otherwise would all turn into alcohol. Applying this approach to ripe warm climate fruit explains what we find in each and every glass of both ruby and tawny style Ports.

After you start drinking regularly a red sweet fortified wine like Port, you’ll understand why those stuffy mens’ clubs found it unnecessary to serve anything else.

Fonseca 20 Year Old Tawny ($49)

Mahogany color. Rich, dried fruit flavors, very elegant and easy to drink.

Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) 2000 ($21)

Reddish-purple, LBV is a ruby Port that is aged in wood for 4-6 years, not as long as a tawny, but more than other rubies.

Croft Quinta Do Roeda (Single Quinta) 2005 ($48)

Chewy textures, with big yet complex layers of fruit flavors. This is a ruby from a single vineyard and single vintage.

Fonseca Vintage Port 2003 ($53, half-bottle)

Oily-glycerin textures, with long lingering flavors. Built for ageing, this vintage ruby will outlive everyone born in the 20^th century (really!).