For The Love Of Port

This week, Mannie Berk and Ricardo Freitas held dinners in New York and San Francisco to celebrate 25 years of collaboration. I was lucky enough to attend the San Francisco dinner at Central Kitchen, and it was pretty amazing.

I'm going to attempt to write a newsletter article about it for Roy, but I'm not a very good note-taker when it comes to Madeira. I'm more of a + and - guy with just a few impressions to go along with them, so pretty much nothing like my Port notes. But even that might be useful to others, so I'll give it a shot.

That said, the highlights of the evening for me were the 1834 Malvasia and the 1864 Malvasia. The QPR winner was easily the 30 Year Old Malvasia Special Lot which I had 3rd on the entire evening. (Sadly it is not the same as the Vo Vera - it was a special bottling in 2006.) Take that with a grain of salt, though... I'm a sucker for Malvasia because it's closest to Tawny Port. Other notables were the 1795 Terrantez and the 1898 Verdelho.

Hey Glenn,

I was at the New York tasting and concur with your impressions. I also enjoyed the 30 year old Malvasia, always as good as I remember it... however at this tasting it was very cloudy in appearance. Was it also cloudy at the SF tasting? Just curious...

Marco D. wrote:I was at the New York tasting and concur with your impressions. I also enjoyed the 30 year old Malvasia, always as good as I remember it... however at this tasting it was very cloudy in appearance. Was it also cloudy at the SF tasting? Just curious...

No, not at all. Everything in San Francisco was pretty much crystal clear, with only the 80 YO having a slightly cloudy haze to it. Actually now that I say that, I think either the Library Company or the Wanderer also had a slight cloudy haze, but I don't really remember which.

That 80 YO was an eye-opener. Ricardo said that it is around 2.7 acidity (not sure what the scale is... he said the legal limit is 1.8) and over 300 g/l sugar! But it tastes dry due to the insane acidity.

I believe the acidity is measured in titratable acids. Grams of tartaric acid/100 mls.
I've had other Madeira with similar insane amounts of acidity. Without sugar they are enamel stripping!

That 80 year old was amazing. Ricardo mentioned that it was too aggressive to bottle by itself but great for blending... but personally I absolutely loved the intensity of it.

Sounds very, very concentrated. Any VA?

Eric Ifune wrote:Sounds very, very concentrated. Any VA?

I didn't notice any to the point of being objectionable.

Marco D. wrote:

Eric Ifune wrote:Sounds very, very concentrated. Any VA?

I didn't notice any to the point of being objectionable.

I didn't notice any, either. I'm also not offended by VA (especially in Madeira), but I can usually smell it if it's present. It's just another note to me, and I don't remember it in anything all night.

But yes, it was very, very concentrated. Not thick, but super intense. I mean, if you believe Ricardo's numbers... a 300 g/l sugar wine that tastes dry???