Portugal's famous wine is best enjoyed where it's made

[Mario Ferreira]

Portugal's famous wine is best enjoyed where it's made
Web Posted: 02/13/2005 12:00 AM CST
Jason Wilson, Special to the Express-News

PORTO , Portugal - It was a quiet Sunday evening when my brother Tyler and I arrived in Porto. It had rained, and the slick, cobblestone alleys along the Douro River glistened in the lights. Across the Douro, in the suburb of Vila Nova de Gaia, we could see the huge illuminated signs of the famed port wine companies - Cockburn, Burmester, Taylor's, Dow's, Graham's, and the shadowy, black-caped logo of Sandeman.

We were looking at the epicenter of the world's port wine industry. For three centuries, grapes to make port have been harvested 100 or so miles upriver in the Douro Valley in the fall, stomped, and stored in casks. In the springtime, the casks are brought down to the various port lodges in Gaia (what the locals call the suburb), where they begin the aging process.

Traditionally, the casks were carried down the Douro River on barco rabelo -and you can still see examples of those sailing ships docked along the riverfront. More important, you can tour, and sample the wares, at two dozen of the still-operating port lodges.

The next morning, Tyler and I set out to do just that. First was the Sandeman port lodge, through dark rooms filled with casks, following a guide dressed in the trademark black hat and cape of the Sandeman "Don" on its logo.

Next, at W&J Graham's port lodge, on a hill high above the Douro , we bought the highly-regarded 2000 vintage. Then we checked out a special cellar that is devoted to famous guests of honor who've visited throughout the years.

Each special guest was invited to throw the contents of a glass of 20-year-old tawny at one of the "appropriate" wooden vats - each one is labeled "The Minister," "The Ambassador," "The Emperor," "The Sportsman," and so on.

Later, sitting in the clubby tasting parlor of Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman port lodge, we worked our way through a white port, a late-bottle vintage and a 20-year-old tawny, as a peacock with feathers spread roamed lovely English gardens outside (though a sign warned, "Please do not bother the peacock, as it is very grumpy").

It was all so very ... I suppose you might call it WASP-y. The atmosphere inside some of the port lodges seemed like an anachronistic slice of the British Empire. (The British don't even call Porto by its name, but rather "Oporto " for some strange reason). None of this should be surprising. The British have dominated the port trade since the late 17th century, when the import of enemy French wines was banned in England.

The British had to drink something, and so fortified wines from Portugal were sought after. By 1703, the Methuen Treaty between Portugal and Britain reduced the duty paid, and port wine's popularity has never wavered since.

We in the United States , unfortunately, are a little more port-addled than our former colonial masters. For instance, let me venture a guess. You have a very special bottle of vintage port wine that someone gave you a number of years ago. Soon after receiving this bottle, you popped it open during a very special dinner party, and after a few sips, re-corked it. That bottle now rests, half full, in the back of your liquor cabinet behind the peach schnapps and the sweet vermouth, awaiting your next very special dinner party. Sound about right?

If it does, please don't tell the good people who work at the famed port lodges in this town. When my brother told this to the prim and proper woman overseeing our tasting in the parlor at the Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman lodge, she almost fainted. "While you can cellar a vintage port for many years, once it's uncorked you should always drink it within 48 hours of opening," she said. "A good 10- or 20-year-old tawny port might last three or four months after opening. And a late-bottle vintage might hold up to six months. But no more than that."

Of the five port houses we visited that morning, I enjoyed Taylor 's most. Sipping on a glass of ruby, I wandered into the library to see a modest display of famous people who drink Taylor 's port. What I learned was rather shocking. Though we likely agree on nothing else, Dick Cheney and I do share the same taste in port.

Next to a 14-year-old photo was a yellowing article from the Oct. 6, 1990, edition of London's Daily Express bearing the headline "Cheney's port in a storm." The reporter commented that while our troops in Saudi Arabia in the first Gulf War were deprived of booze, "I can disclose that America's Secretary of Defense has not been so abstemious in his alcohol consumption." Cheney had humped his own bottles of Taylor's into the desert.

Lest we draw too many conclusions from all this, let me point out one other documented devotee of Taylor's port: Fidel Castro. Some day, maybe we can achieve such common political ground outside the civilized parlor of a port lodge? We can only hope.

There's only so much port and geopolitics one can ingest in a morning. Also only so much pass-it-on-the-left Englishness. We saw the stone walls and dozens of cured and smoked hams hanging above the bar at Adega e Presuntaria Transmontana and decided that an afternoon of eating was a good idea.

We ate local cheese and smoked hams and sausages, one made from a rare black boar, served on wooden plank, followed by an entr�e of garlicky veal mirandesa, a local specialty. But the highlight was the seemingly endless selection of desserts - including four variations of the gooey, custardy pudim.

A couple hours later, we ate at Francesinhas & Ca. and ordered the signature dish - the francesinha, or "little French thing." This misleadingly named local specialty consisted of a fat piece of toast piled with a selection of ham, beef or spicy sausages, enveloped in thick melted cheese, swimming in a peppery tomato sauce. Mine was served with a fried egg on top.

After eating like we had, I felt I could empathize with the Portuguese, who were recently fingered in an EU lifestyle and fitness survey as the "laziest nation in the European Union." We could barely waddle back across the suspension bridge to the Porto side.
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Jason Wilson is editor of The Best of American Travel Writing series.