It's Not Just for Cold Nights Anymore [New York Times]

[Mario Ferreira]

It's my pleasure to make available to readers of this Forum the following article of Florence Fabricant that was published in the The New York Times on August 3, 2005. I would like to make a note that I find curious to see an article on Port being published right in the middle of Summer in such prestigious newspaper. Normally, articles on Port are regarded for the Fall or Winter seasons. But, as Ms. Florence Fabricant puts it, Port "It's Not Just for Cold Nights Anymore" and "America is restyling traditional port drinking". /MF.

It's Not Just for Cold Nights Anymore
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

THE thermometer ramps past 80 degrees. Time for a glass of port.

But not that rich, sip-in-front-of-the-fire quaff.

Port, a fortified wine, is more adaptable than generally assumed. Port from Portugal can still be divided into three main categories: white (from white grapes); vintage or vintage style, including ruby ports (rich, dark and fruity); and tawny (wood aged, with a nutty color and flavor). But America is restyling traditional port drinking. Some vintage style and tawny ports are meant to be drunk chilled.

"It's time to give a new, young, vibrant look to port," said António Saraiva, the manager and winemaker for Rozès, a port house that has just introduced a line of ports in color-coded bottles, including an aged but fruity ruby port and a tawny, to be served before or after dinner.

In Portugal, white port, especially if made in a less traditional, crisp style, is a popular aperitif with tonic.

Wine shops are also stocking lighter but better-quality ruby reserves, well-made young tawnies and ports from single estates known as quintas to stand alongside typical aged tawnies and great vintage ports with well-known labels.

The growing category of single-quinta ports provides an enjoyable, drinkable and less costly alternative to powerfully complex, often tannic classic vintage ports. They are vintage-dated but designed for drinking sooner. They also offer cachet for consumers, especially Americans who dote on single-estate coffees, chocolates, teas and olive oils.

Americans are even breaking the rules when it comes to drinking top-rated vintage ports, doing so on their own freewheeling terms, without complicated conventions having to do with decanting and pouring.

The United States overtook Britain as the biggest importer of vintage port in 2002. Some collectors, like the British, still let their vintage ports mature for decades, but others, especially affluent young wine buffs, have less patience. Bartholomew Broadbent, a co-founder of Broadbent Selections, a California-based importer of several brands of port, said Americans preferred young vintage ports to mature ones at recent tastings.

"To admit something like that would be frowned upon in England," he said. "But in America you're drinking expensive, highly concentrated, high-alcohol California cabernets very young. To go from a big young table wine to young vintage port is a natural progression."

Mr. Broadbent also said that unlike the English, who drink their ports at home or in clubs, Americans order port in restaurants, more like the Portuguese do these days.

"Something chocolate is standard on every American dessert list, and port is one of the few wines that go with chocolate," he said.

OTHER changes are coming from Portugal.

"This region has turned upside down in the last 15 years," said David Guimaraens, the winemaker for Fonseca Guimaraens and the other brands in the Taylor Fladgate partnership, who was guiding this visitor around some of the company's estates last fall.

He pointed out new, unconventional methods for planting grapes, in vertical rows up and down the gentler hillsides so that tractors can till the soil. Machines are rarely used with traditional horizontal rows. He showed his latest piston-driven mechanical alternative to the quaint but effective and costly practice of having workers crush the grapes with their bare feet in big granite vats called lagares, a vestige of the past that still lingers in the Douro. Some producers use only treaded grapes for their finest vintage ports. But most are using various mechanical systems that are still being perfected.

There are more than 30,000 growers of grapes for port in Portugal, most of whom cultivate just a few acres. For centuries, only major shipping companies with venerable names in the port business like Taylor, Dow and Warre could export the wines. But in 1986, when Portugal joined the European Union, individual growers and winemakers in the steep, remote inland region along the Douro River were allowed to ship their wines themselves.

So some entrepreneurial farmers started making and selling port, usually under the single-quinta labels, instead of sending their grapes for blending to the big companies that dominate the port trade.

All ports are deliciously, delightfully mellow, because after the grapes are crushed, the fermentation is arrested before all the sugar has been converted to alcohol by the addition of clear, unaged brandy, which also increases the wine's alcoholic content to about 20 percent. How the wine is aged determines its style, and there is something for everyone.

Just as first growths establish renown in Bordeaux, the prestige of a port company depends on its classic vintage ports, ports that are bottled within about two years after they are made, and that often cost $100 or more. They are capable of aging for decades. But despite their overpowering presence in wine shops, classic vintage ports account for only about 2 percent of all port made in Portugal. Like vintage ports, single-quinta ports are bottle aged.

Another classification, late-bottled vintage, or L.B.V., which was established in the 1960's as an alternative to vintage port, is more popular than ever, priced at about $25 a bottle. These lighter ports are matured in huge oak casks for about six years, and they carry a vintage date. But they are ready to drink when bottled.

Younger ruby ports once called "vintage character" now have to be labeled by law in Portugal as ruby reserve. They are reliable, brand-name wines, full of fruit, and they represent a step above entry-level ruby ports. Ruby ports dominate port production, and, like other fruity red wines, take to light chilling.

Tawny ports are allowed to mature in wooden casks or barrels for seven years or more, to acquire an amber color and a flavor that is more nutty and honeyed than fruity. The better tawnies have been aged in wood 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, as stated on the label. Sales of tawny ports, especially the 10- and 20-year-olds, usually $20 to $50 a bottle, are also increasing in the United States. The new Rozès line of color-coded ports to serve chilled includes a 10-year-old tawny for about $20.

Except for aged vintage port, which can fade like old wine once it has been opened, a bottle of port can often be enjoyed over a period of weeks, like sherry, making it ideal for restaurants to pour by the glass.

With molten chocolate cake? A plummy vintage style. With cheese or the crème brûlée? A tawny. Before dinner? White. And all lightly chilled, if that's the way you prefer it.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Im a Dad]

It's nice to see the mainstream press reporting on Port. Thanks for posting this.