PORT SPEAKERS NOTES
– WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 8, 2014
Port is made
by running off partially fermented red wine, while it still contains at least
half its grape sugar, into a vessel a quarter full of (often chilled)
brandy. The brandy stops the
fermentation so that the resulting mixture is both strong and sweet. But the wine also needs the pigmentation of
the grape skins to colour it, and their tannin to preserve it. In normal wines these are extracted during
the course of fermentation, but since with port the fermentation is unnaturally
short, pigmentation and tannin have to be procured some other way – which
traditionally in the Douro means by treading.
Treading is
a means of macerating the grape skins in their juice so as to extract all their
essences. The naked foot is the perfect
tool for this, being warm and doing no damage to the pips, which would make the
juice bitter if they were crushed.
Rhythmically stamping thigh-deep in the mixture of juice and skins in a
broad stone trough (lagar) is the traditional treatment for giving port its
colour, its grapiness and its ability to last and improve for many years.
Most port
producers, or shippers, have introduced some sort of mechanical substitute for
treading, either computer-controlled mechanical paddles or an autovinifier, a
specially adapted closed fermenting vat which automatically pumps new wine over
the skins.
Perhaps
three years out of ten conditions are near perfect for port-making. The best wine of these years needs no
blending; nothing can improve it except time.
It is bottled at 2 years like red Bordeaux, labelled simply with its
shippers name and the date. This is
vintage port, and it is made in tiny quantities, there is never enough of
it. Eventually, perhaps after 20 years
it will have a fatness and fragrance, richness and delicacy, which is
incomparable.
A great
vintage port is incontestably among the world’s very best wines. Most other port from near-vintage standard to
merely moderate, goes through a blending process to emerge as a branded wine of
a given character. This wine aged in
wood, matures in a different way, more rapidly to someth8ing much
mellower. A very old wood port is
comparatively pale (“tawny” is the term) but particularly smooth. The best aged tawnies, usually labelled 20
years (although other permitted age claims are 10, 30 and Over 40 years), can
cost as much as vintage ports; many people prefer their gentleness to the full
fat fieriness which vintage port can keep for decades. Chilled tawny is the standard drink of port
shippers.
Ports
labelled Colheita (Portuguese for “harvest”) are wood-aged ports from a single
year, expressive tawnies which are usually drunk as soon as possible after the
bottling date, which should appear on the label.
Vintage port
has disadvantages. It needs keeping for
a very long time. And it needs handling
with great care. As the making of the
wine does not reach its end until after bottling, the sediment forms a “crust”
on the side of the bottle, a thin, delicate, dirty looking veil. If the bottle is moved, other than very
gingerly, the crust will break and mix with the wine, so that it has to be
filtered out again. Vintage Ports are
usually chalked to show the side to face up while storing.
“Ports” Around the World – so-called Ports are made in the
U.S., South Africa and Australia among other places. These fortified wines, while they may be
quite extraordinary (as they are particularly in Australia) are not true Ports. Like authentic Champagne or Sherry, real Port
comes only from its historic demarcated region.
The
Styles of Port There
are 10 different styles of Port, each one unique, though their similar-sounding
names make it difficult to remember them all.
Before examining the different styles, it’s important to note that all Port
falls into one of two major categories, those that are aged predominantly in
wood (or in a tank() and those that are aged predominantly in bottles. Predominantly wood aged Ports are ready to
drink right after they are bottled and shipped.
Vintage Port
is the most famous type of bottle aged Port.
After this long aging, bottled-aged Ports throw a sediment, which, of
course, should remain in the bottle.
Most bottle-aged Ports therefore need to be decanted.
The 10
styles of Port are described beginning, as much as possible with the simplest
styles. Regrettably, organizing the
styles of Port into a logical progression isn’t as easy as it might seem since
many styles of Port are interdependent in the sense that the prerequisite for
understanding one style is understanding another. Therein lies the rub!
WHITE PORT
White Port
is the simplest type of Port – so simple, it’s barely considered Port by many
Port lovers. It’s also a bit of an
aberration, being made from indigenous but fairly obscure white grapes. It represents only a small amount of the
total production of Port.
RUBY PORT
This is the
least complex style of the red Ports, and its inexpensive. It receives almost no bottle age before
release. Fruity and straightforward ruby
Port is a blend of young wines from different years, all of which have been in
barrels or tanks for 2 or 3 years.
YOUNG TAWNY PORT
There are 2
widely different types of tawny Port:
young (unaged) tawny and aged tawny.
Young tawny Port, like ruby Port, is basic and uncomplicated. It is less
than 3 years old.
AGED TAWNY PORT
Usually
designated on the label as either 10, 20, 30 or more than 40 years old, aged
tawny Ports are among the best-loved Ports in Portugal, Britain, and
France. They are drunk both as aperitifs
and at the close of a meal.
The wines
used for aged tawnies are of the highest quality. In fact these wines often go into vintage
Port in the years when a vintage is declared.
However, because they are made in completely different ways, aged
tawnies and vintage Ports taste nothing alike.
Aged tawnies are about finesse; vintage Ports, about power.
LATE BOTTLED VINTAGE PORT
Late bottled
vintage Ports – LBVs – are also somewhat confusingly named. These are Ports from a single vintage that
have been aged in the barrel for four to six years and then bottled. They are ready to drink when the shipper
releases them. Though LBV’s have been
barrel aged for four years (as opposed to vintage Port’s two), they are usually
not substantial enough wines to have the potential to age for decades more in
the bottle (which vintage Port can). But
don’t be misled. Late bottled vintage
Ports, despite their impressive sound name, are not the equal of vintage
Ports. They are wines of very good
quality from good, not great years, but they lack the richness, complexity, and
sophistication of vintage Port.
TRADITIONAL LATE BOTTLED VINTAGE PORT
Only a few
Port shippers still make a traditional late bottled vintage Port which is
closer to vintage Port than to the standard LBV. Traditional late bottled vintage Ports are
made like vintage Ports, but they come from good, not great (declared) years.
VINTAGE PORT
No Port is
more sought after- or expensive. Vintage
Port represents only 2 – 3 percent of the total production of Port. It is made only in very good years when Port shippers
declare a vintage. All of the grapes in
the blend will come only from that vintage and from top vineyards in the best
parts of the Douro.
Vintage
Ports are first aged two years in a barrel, to round off their powerful edges,
and then can age a long time in bottle.
During bottle aging the Port matures slowly, becoming progressively more
refined and integrated. A decade’s worth
of aging is standard, and several decades used to be fairly common.
To maintain
the intensity and richness of vintage Port, it is not filtered. It therefore throws a great deal of sediment
as it matures in the bottle and must be decanted.
The U.S. is
the largest market in the world for one sty of Port, vintage Port.
Vintage Port
can only be made in exceptional years when the young wines show near perfect
balance. In these years the shipper must
first declare a vintage. In years not
declared for vintage Port, Port shippers take the grapes they might have used
for vintage Port and blend them into other styles.
According to
historical record, the first Ports from a single vintage were made around 1734
CRUSTED PORT
Crusted Port is designated as such because it
leaves a heavy crust, or sediment, in the bottle. This is simply a basic good hearty Port, made
form a blend of several different years (the average age of the wines in the
blend is 3-4 years), that has been bottled unfiltered. As a result, it throws a sediment and must be
decanted. Gustsy, full- bodied, and
moderately priced, it’s sometimes described as the working man’s vintage Port.
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