Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

The Port FAQ and the Old Usenet Posts

Back in the days before the usenet was all spam all the time, I was a regular contributor to the rec.food.drink group. Using the Google Groups page, I've searched for my old posts so as to post some to the blog. Most of them are too dated to bother with, but I did find one long post proposing a draft FAQ on port wine. I've stuck that post in the Extended Posts area. Contents: 1) Introduction: What is Port? Where does it come from? 2) What are the various styles of Ports? 3) Serving suggestions. 4) What vintages should I be buying for current consumption and what vintages should I be buying to lay down? (With an aside on the economics of buying port.) 5) What are "single-Qunita" ports? 6) Where should I go for additional information? ******* 1) Introduction: What is Port? Where does it come from? True port comes from the Douro river valley in Portugal. The Douro is in the northern third of the country and runs pretty much straight from east to west (at least within Portugal). Although the Duoro originates in Spain, where it is called Ribera del Duero, all port comes from Portugal. Over 40 varieties of grapes are grown in the Douro region. Most of the best are named "Tinta [something]." There is no such thing as a varietal port. Port is a sweet wine. It is also a fortified wine. Most port is red, although there is a small trickle of white port. White port tends to be a bit dryer and much of it goes to France where it is used as an aperitif. The making of port is quite unique. The grapes are crushed as one would to make a normal red wine. Most houses now use mechanical crushers, although a few still use foot-trodden grapes for their best wines. In either case, the wines are allowed to ferment normally until they reach about 6% alcohol. At that point, the wine will still have a lot of residual sugar (usually about 10%). [Recall that dry table wine will ferment to 10-14% alcohol.] The wine is then run off into vats holding brandy (or, more often, neutral spirits fermented and distilled from wine). The usual ratio is four parts wine to one part spirits. The brandy raises the alcohol content to 19-21%. Yeasts cannot function at that high percentage of alcohol. (It is an odd fact, and perhaps one worth meditating upon, that alcohol is toxic even to the beasties that produce it.) Accordingly, fermentation stops. The residual sugar therefore remains in the wine, leaving the raw young port a naturally sweet wine. Once made the wine is transported down river to the city of Oporto (actually to a suburb across the river from Oporto), where it matures in barrels called pipes. The pipes hold slightly more than twice the volume of wine held by the French barrels used in Bordeaux, Burgundy and California. Unlike most French or California wines, however, wood flavors are not desired. Port shippers thus use old barrels for their port, which impart little if any flavor to the wines aged in them. Sometime within the first 2 years of the wine's life, the Port producer has to decide whether to bottle it as true vintage Port or to keep it in cask for later use in a ruby, tawny, or late-bottled vintage Port. Port producers generally consider vintage Port to be their top wine, so they reserve only their best casks for it and only bottle it in the best years (usually no more than 3 years a decade). When a Port producer decides to bottle a vintage Port, they're said to "declare the vintage". Not all producers declare the same years. People familiar with vintage champagne will recognize that roughly the same process is being used here. Vintage Port is released for sale when it's 3 years old, after it's been in the bottle for 6 months to a year. It can be very rough stuff, highly tannic and very heady (due to the brandy). It usually takes at least 10 years for a vintage Port to settle down, and in general 20 years for the top vintages to really approach maturity. (During the maturing process the wine and brandy are said to "marry," with the result being a smoother and much more pleasant wine.) All other ports (w/ the exception of some "crusted" ports) are ready to drink when they're released. BTW: In pre-EC days, "port" was legally defi ed in England as wine that had been shipped over the bar at Oporto. Some say that a fair bit of Australian and South African wine stopped off in Oporto on its way to England, and then was sold as port therein! "Port" is also made in most New World countries, especially California, Australian and South African. In general, I recommend staying away from New World "ports." There are some good ones, but most of them are pure dreck. And the good ones aren't as good value as the Portuguese ones -- IMHO. I don't even cook with the things. Having said that, Ficklin is pretty good. Quady's Starboard wine (get it?) is also pretty good, although I mostly like the name. You can spot a true port by looking at the country of origin on the label; also true ports are actually labelled "Porto," rather than "port." Somebody (I've lost track of who) posted the following: "For Aussie Port, the Yalumba "Gallway Pipe" is an outstanding tawny, as good as most upper-tier Oporto producers 20-year tawnies, at half the price ($15)." 2) Styles a) Ruby. Young, fruity, flavorful, dare I say frivolous. Not regarded by connoisseurs as a serious wine. But usually the cheapest category and perhaps not a bad place to start. Vintage character, however, doesn't cost that much more and is usually a lot better. The name comes the color, which is pretty accurate. Generally gets 3-4 years of barrel age, with little if any bottle age. Always a blend of vineyards and years. b) Tawny. Tawny is aged for many years in large wood barrels (called pipes). Tawny is a blend of wood-aged ports from many years. The houses blend for at least three reasons. First, blending helps smooth out variations from vintage to vintage, which enables the house to maintain a consistent style from year to year. Presumably this is thought to enhance brand loyalty. Second, by blending, you obscure the flaws of a particular vintage. Third, blending means that you get the benefit of several different ages of port. Younger wines contribute some freshness and tannin, while older wines contribute smoothness and character. The name "tawny" comes from the fact that the wine is kept in barrel long enough that the wine has turned from the bright red/purple of young wine to a tawny shade. (Cheap tawnies are made by blending ruby and white port.) Tawnies are usually sold under with an indication of the average age of the wines in the blend (thus, 20-year-old Tawny will have an average age of 20 years for the wine) [NB: These days, this is my usual tipple.] c) Vintage. In contrast to the preceding, vintage port all comes from a single year. It also does most of its aging in bottle. Typically, vintage ports get only a couple of years in barrel, while Tawny may get 10 to 30 or even more. The difference between wood and bottle aging is quite dramatic. Tawny and vintage port are totally different drinks, due to their different aging processes. Tawny develops rancio, a flavor caused by oxidation, that for many people is an acquired taste. On the other hand, tawny is ready to drink upon release because it did its aging in barrel. Ditto for ruby. In contrast, vintage port desperately needs age in bottle. The amount of time needed in bottle differs from house to house. 10 years is probably the minimum needed for light houses in a light year. 15 is more typical. Tawny and ruby generally will not improve in bottle, and may in fact deteriorate. (Caveat: some contend that so-called late bottled vintage ports improve in bottle. I don't find this to be the case. See below.) Paul Winalski writes: Vintage port "throws a very heavy sediment as it ages. Fully mature vintage Port usually has a brick-reddish color (not as tan-colored as a tawny), an extremely complex and full bouquet, and complex flavors in which the fruit, brandy, and sweetness components of the Port have married in a harmonious balance." All true, except that I don't like to let my port get too far to the brick end of the spectrum. d) Vintage Character: If you don't like tawny, and find vintage too expensive for frequent drinking, t en you should turn to "vintage character" ports. Vintage character (VC) ports are really ruby ports (essentially wood-aged ports that don't stay in barrel long enough to become tawnys). Usually, the house's VC port will be it's best ruby port. I drink Warre's Warrior, Sandeman's Founder's Reserve, and Cockburn's Special Reserve on a regular basis. [NB: These days Dow�s 10 year old tawny is my main tipple.] None are particularly special, but all are quite acceptable. NB: port snobs will turn up their noses at VC ports, but most of them have a bottle or two hidden in their liquor closet. They're cheap (compared to vintage and tawny), they last up to a week once opened, and they're fine for mid-week drinking. (They also go quite well with cigars. I'm loath to drink vintage port with a cigar, lest I obscure the wonderful taste and aroma that I've waited so long and paid so much to savor.) e) Late-bottled vintage (LBV) port is port from a single year's harvest that has been kept in cask longer than the 2 years required for true vintage port. In general, LBVs get 4-6 years in barrel. It is usually ready to drink upon release, although many port connoisseurs believe it improves in bottle. A variant on this theme is "crusted port," which is similar to LBV but likely to throw a heavy sediment in bottle. Crusted port is more likely to improve in bottle than is LBV, IMHO. 3) Serving suggestions. Most people drink port after dinner (because its sweet). I find it works well with Stilton, nuts (not too salty, e.g., walnuts), and cigars. (But see my remarks above w/r/t to cigars with vintage port.) It doesn't work very well with sweet desserts. The French (God love 'em) drink Port as an aperitif. I don't know why, other than their national sweet tooth, and I'm certainly not going to try it myself. Vintage port *MUST* be decanted. Because of the volume of sediment it throws, you can maximize the amount of available wine by passing it through a filter. There are some very nice pewter and silver decanting funnels available, some of which have built- in filters and some of which are designed to hold a piece of muslin or cheesecloth that will act as a filter. It is traditional for the host to pass the port clockwise at table (i.e., right to left). In olden days, the women would leave the table for the sitting room, while the men would move up to the head of the table to drink port and smoke cigars for a period before rejoining the ladies. Those days are of course gone. In my house, the port is nevertheless still consumed primarily by the men of the party. If we are smoking cigars, however, we do so in the detached garage! (4) Vintage information: Paul Winalski writes: "1963 and 1977 have won almost universal praise as great years for vintage Port. 1955, 1970, 1983, 1985, and 1991 are all widely-declared years of top quality. 1960, 1966, 1975, 1978, 1980, and 1982 are less widely declared and not on the same quality plateau." This is generally true, so long as you define "widely" to mean "virtually all." Most houses declared 60, 66 and 75. NB: I can get exact figures and will do so before my next posting. An aside on the economics of buying port to lay down: A recent contributor to r.f.d. urged that we all run out and buy the '91 ports. To which I responded as follows: "The great trouble with port is time value of money. Are you better off buying port to lay down for 20 years or investing your money wisely and then buying the port 15 years or so from now from a reputable auction house? I suspect the latter will often be the case. Bear in mind that when you buy newly released port to hold to maturity, you are incurring two sets of opportunity costs: (1) the income you forego by not investing those funds; and (2) the loss of storage space for an extended period of time. "Example follows: [The prior poster wrote:] 'I was telling Dave in Denver about my baby, a '66 Graham's that I picked up at Justerini & Brooks for 49 quid (75 of your earth dollars) [snip]' "Let's use present discounted valuing to see whether you're better off buying this port today at $75 than you would have been if you had bought it on release. "1966 value equals 1994 value divided by the discount factor, which is (1 + r) raised to the nth, where n is the number of years we're discounting for and r is the discount rate. Assume a discount rate of 6% and that the '66 was released 25 years ago today. On that basis, the 1966 value should have been about $17.50. In other words, if the 1966 port cost more than $17.50 on release it made economic sense for you to buy the port back then (disregarding the opportunity cost of giving up the storage space for 25 years). "Another example. Suppose you buy the 1991 port today for $20. What is the implicit interest rate that is necessary for that bottle to be worth $75 in 25 years? 5.4%. In other words, it makes economic sense for you to buy the 1991 port today only if you have no investment opportunity that can pay you an annual rate of return of more than 5.4% for the next 25 years. (If you don't, send me your money and I'll pay you 5.4% for the next 25 years. Just kidding.) "None of which is to denigrate the 1991 vintage. But I'm buying and drinking '70, '77, '78, and '82 ports right now at a much lower cost than I would have incurred if I had bought them on release. So a little attention to economics gives one a better perspective on the need to run out and buy the 1991 vintage." To which Paul Winalski responded as follows: "On the other hand, if I lay down the port myself, I (1) know that 15+ years from now, I'll be sure of having it, rather than having to rely on maybe finding it at auction somewhere, and (2) I'll be sure it was kept correctly, rather than taking a gamble that whoever is putting it up for auction stored it properly." Paul has proven himself to be a person to be taken seriously on wine questions, especially relating to port. But I disagree with him on this issue. I have had little difficulty getting adequate supplies of my favorite ports at auction. Nor have I had any problems w/ bottles that were improperly stored (by which I mean bottles stored in conditions worse than those I can provide). This is a key point: few of us really have the proper conditions to store port for 15+ years. Does your wine cellar really never get above say 60 degrees? Does your wine cellar really never get below say 50% humidity? Unless you've got perfect (or at least excellent) storage conditions, aging port becomes quite a gamble. I'd rather buy it from an auction house whose reputation for checking the wine's provenance is well- established. In any case, my main point was that the economics are more complicated than some would suggest. What Paul did is to further complicate the economics, which in facts supports my main point that the decision to buy vintage port requires a more thoughtful analysis than simply saying "Great vintage, good price, have at it." 5) "Single-Quinta" ports are essentially comparable to a French or California single-vineyard wine. Quinta is the term used in the Douro for a farm, i.e., a specific vineyard site. The Port shippers own (or buy from) vineyards located all over the Douro area. The wines they bottle are usually a blend from several quintas. Sometimes one quinta will produce excellent wine, worthy of vintage treatment, but the conditions aren't right for the producer to declare a vintage. The producer may opt to bottle the wine from this single quinta as vintage Port. It's the same as regular vintage Port, except it all comes from one vineyard site and bears the quinta name as well as the producer's name (regular vintage Port only has the producer's name and the vintage date). Examples include Dow's Quinta do Bomfim, Graham's Quinta dos Malvedos, Symington's Quinta do Vesuvio, and Quinta do Noval's Nacional. Paul Winalski writes: "General wisdom is that, while these single quintas generally form the backbone of the producer's vintage Port in declared vintage years, they miss some nuances and complexity contributed by the wines from the other vineyard sites, and thus the single-quinta vin age Ports aren't as complex or complete as regular vintage Ports from declared years. The ones I've had (Malvedos and Vesuvio) have been damn good Ports." The general wisdom to which Paul refers is true in my experience, BUT the Quinta do Noval Nacional port has consistently been the greatest port I've ever drunk. (The 1931 Nacional also has the distinction of having brought the highest price ever paid for a port at auction: something like $30,000. It's a goal.) Nacional is notably for being the only remaining port to be made from ungrafted vines: the vineyard has never been infested with phylloxera. Other than the Nacional, single-quinta ports strike me as being mostly a marketing device. 6) Additional information: James Suckling's "Wine Spectator Guide to Vintage Ports">Wine Spectator Guide to Vintage Ports" is undoubtedly the leading reference, although it is now somewhat dated. Michael Broadbent's "Vintage Book" also has a good bit of information, although it too is rather dated. Robert Parker's "Wine Buying Guide">Wine Buying Guide" has a decent section on vintage ports, mostly focusing on recent vintages.