Port is for life, not just for Christmas

In some ways Port is a most English drink – all tradition, endurance and establishment. Port for me also has the extra allure of all my favourite wines – those improbable offspring of invention and necessity.  It’s also (I feel) a respectable outlet for my ridiculously sweet tooth. This strong, luscious, heady wine is from a most singular and remote place.  Even the most seasoned vineyard visitor gasps at their first sight of the wild, hot, vertiginous Douro.  Most paradoxes are beautiful, and the combination of these stony slopes, with their gloriously unfamiliar vine varieties and a most English sensibility - and names - makes Port one of my favourite wines.

Port as we know it was born from the chronic Anglo-French scrapping of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. French imports of pretty much everything, including wine, were banned by Charles II in 1667. England needed a new source of wine. Our old friend Portugal was poised. The two nations had agreed mutually beneficial trading concessions back in 1386, and in the years since many English and Scottish merchants had set up in Portugal. Names such as Taylor’s, Warre’s, Cockburn’s, Campbell’s, Graham’s and Croft tell of this old association.

Early Portuguese wine imports – of the pale, delicate reds from the wet, green Minho - didn’t take the English by storm. To call them ‘fresh’ was probably an understatement. Both English tastes and the practicalities of the journey demanded something more robust. 

I wonder at the efforts of the first English merchants to investigate the wild upper reaches of the Douro in the 18^th century, looking for sources of wine to export. While not exactly Indiana Jones material, these journeys into the steep, dry interior, with its slightly terrifying beauty, must have been quite a mission. 

The quality and character of the concentrated wine from these low-yielding vines on their mean, hard soils became quite quickly apparent. Then, as now, grapes were grown by an army of independent farmers on their tiny, demanding plots. But fortification - the adding of brandy or grape spirit to the infant, sweet, juice -  became widely adopted only by the late 1800s. Port as a sweet wine was born, not without controversy on the way.

The Port region is distinguished by early adoption of quality controls, and a system vineyard demarcation and classification. This classification, established in the 1750s, endures, and its story is well told in this article by Roy Hersh. 

Today, Port comes in a gloriously wide range of styles and prices, which are nicely explained here, on Taylor’s website. All red port is made from (potentially scores of) native Douro grapes, of which all are characterised by thick skins, high sugars, firm tannin and concentrated juice. Once this sweet, dark juice is extracted and partly fermented, brandy is added, turbo charging alcohol levels and killing the fermenting yeasts. Around half of the natural sugars in the juice are preserved, giving Port its trademark sweetness. The greatest ports counterbalance this sweetness with either (depending on style) satisfyingly resistant tannin, or the piquant tang of deliberate oxidation.

Vintage Port

In great years, from the great sites, this infant wine is aged for just a year or two in vats and then put into bottle, where it can happily slumber for half a century or more. Vintage Port is a tiny part (about 1%) of Port by volume, but its heroic longevity and incomparable complexity make it a giant of reputation. Demanding such endurance of a wine requires the best possible quality, intensity and balance. It doesn’t happen every year. We generally get three or four vintages in a decade, of variable personality and quality.

House style plays a part. Taylor’s vintage port is known for its refined power, Dow’s for its opulence, and Fonseca (a house with Portuguese roots, now part of the Taylor’s stable) for its rich fruit and exotic aromatics. So far, despite their greatness, vintage ports have avoided the speculation-fuelled price spikes of other great, age worthy reds, and you can buy mature examples of these superb wines at very fair prices. Vintages from the 1960s and 1970s are beautiful to drink now, their tannins silky but defined, and their fruit incomparably complex. Those from the 1980s are just getting going. The interplay of house style and vintage characteristic makes for enjoyable variety with vintage port. At recent tastings, the 1985 Fonseca was dark and youthful -  almost bursting from the glass with gorgeously exuberant fruit and plump, pillowy tannins. From the same vintage Taylor’s was paler and more restrained, with elegant grip and lovely aromatic nuance. BWI is offering both of these Ports at the moment - find details here.


There is much to look forward to. Of the 1990s, 1994 Vintage Port is living up to its early promise with ripe but defined fruit and firm, refined tannin. This particular vintage has seen prices increase on the secondary market - perhaps a sign of things to come if the much predicted Chinese Port discovery materialises.  Vintage 2000 is, in the very best sense, old-fashioned in its firm tannic grip and cool dark fruit. 2009 is a hedonists dream, with hugely sweet, ripe fruit and great gobfuls of almost bouncy tannin.

Single Quinta

In less-than-great years, individual vineyards (quintas) can still produce superb grapes. I think of a ‘Single Quinta’ as rather like a vintage port, in miniature quantities, and in a slightly lighter style.

Tawny Ports

Tawnies are the great bargain of old, fine wine. Unlike Vintage and Single Quinta, which age in the bottle, Tawnies are aged in large wooden barrels for a decade or more before being bottled. Their name speaks of their golden, honeyed colour. They are nutty, tangy, rich and complex. You can drink them chilled – like the Portuguese do – and they are most definitely not just for Christmas. Unlike a vintage, ruby or single quinta port, which should be drunk within a few days of opening, you can keep an opened Tawny in the fridge for several weeks. They come in varied ages, and will say so on the label. The older a Tawny, the more rich and intense is its flavour. The best Old Tawnies are not merely 10-year-olds that have been stored for a bit longer. At Fonseca, for example, the 40-year-old Tawny is made in necessarily tiny quantities from selected vineyards that produce grapes with the concentration and intensity to survive, triumphant, 40 years of ageing in oak. 

A 20-year-old Tawny is probably the most versatile Christmas drink. It tastes less obviously sweet than its darker red cousins. Drunk chilled, it is delicious as an aperitif. It is a brilliant match with hard cheeses, Christmas pudding and mince pies. It’s also amazing with Turkey Curry.