Memorize a few terms, and you’ll know exactly how to lay in port supplies for the next blizzard.
by Daniel Duane
Nothing soothes a weary soul like a fine glass of port on a frigid winter’s night, but few Americans know the good stuff from the dreck. It ain’t easy: Port was born of necessity in the late 17th century, when the English, barred from importing French wine, talked the Portuguese into adding brandy to half-fermented grape juice to make a high-alcohol, high-sugar product that could survive long sea voyages. Winemakers then experimented, blending wines from different vineyards and vintages and tweaking the various aging techniques in both wood casks and glass bottles. Three hundred years later, you need a dictionary to make sense of it all, from the basic tawny and ruby to the higher-quality ports below, which are some of the most complex and spellbinding wines of any kind. Memorize a few terms, and you’ll know exactly how to lay in supplies for the next blizzard.
Port Label Translated:
Late Bottled Vintage: A description of the type of port and how it was aged (see full range below).
LBV is vintage port for the impatient, put through accelerated aging in wooden casks and bottled ready to drink.
Single Harvest: This term indicates that, unlike many lesser blended ports, all of the grapes in this bottle came from a particular year — a testament to the grower’s faith in their quality.
Bottled in 2004: This, coupled with the vintage year of 2000, means that the port spent four years aging in oak casks before going into the bottle.
Top Port Grades
1. Vintage: The Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto (IVDP) approves ports from three “vintage years” each decade, allowing shippers to label their finest with the year and the words vintage porto. The wine can spend only three years in wood, allowing it to bottle mature over decades. The result is a magnificently complex wine that shouldn’t be sipped before its 10th birthday and could improve for a century.
One to try: Dow’s Vintage Porto 1994 ($90)
2. Single Quinta Vintage: Quinta means “farm,” and portmakers can bottle the wine whenever they want, typically with their top grapes in very good years.
One to try: Symington’s 1998 Quinta do Vesuvio Vintage ($57)
3. Late Bottled Vintage: Simply, it means more time in wood. Still quality fruit, but four to six years of cask time accelerates aging to make LBV drinkable upon release.
One to try: Sandeman Late Bottled Vintage Porto 2000 ($33)
4. Colheita: A colheita (Portuguese for “harvest”) may come from lesser grapes. Aged even longer in wood for quick drinking, it’s like LBV only more so: Seven-plus years; some might need 20 to become drinkable.
One to try: Krohn Porto Colheita 1994 ($33)
The Proper Way to Serve Port
1. Stand
Six to 12 hours before serving, stand the bottle of port upright somewhere cool and away from
sunlight, allowing sediment to settle on the bottom.
2. Open
At least an hour before serving, remove the cork carefully, lest it disintegrate.
3. Decant
To serve, pour the port gently into a glass decanter, both to aerate the wine and to leave the
sediment behind.
4. Pour
Pour a few ounces into crystal port glasses, or any small dessert wine glasses that taper inward near the top.
5. Savor
Swirl, sniff, and sip, and ideally pair it with a strong cheese, like Stilton.
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