Talk to a port lover and you had better get your terminology straight. Say that you had some good port last night, and be prepared for questions like: “Vintage?” “Tawny?” “Ruby?” “Crusted?”
If your reply is “vintage,” you should be prepared to say which one, and also which shipper, because with port, different shippers–the companies that make the wine–sell different vintages.
But portmakers rarely agree on what is a good year. In 1993, most of the shippers declared 1991 to be a vintage year, and that was the first broad consensus since the 1985 vintage. Even so, the British company Taylor Fladgate, thought by many to produce the finest vintage ports, held back. It waited a year, then declared the 1992 to be better.
Vintage port accounts for 2 percent to 3 percent of each year’s port production. Yet it is the most discussed and the most expensive of all ports. The memorable years for drinking now include 1963 and 1977, both vintages whose prices are out of reach for all but a fortunate few. For example, a 1977 Taylor is $95, and a 1963 from the same company is $250. And for the really big spenders among us, a 1937 Niepoort colheita is about $455.
But don’t despair. Good port is not unobtainable, because there is always tawny. Tawny ports, the second most important variety, are aged in wood. Whereas vintage port spends only two years in wood and, ideally, decades in the bottle, tawny port spends its youth–and occasionally some of its middle age–in wooden casks in the sheds, or lodges, in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the Douro River from Oporto (the city that gave port its name) in northern Portugal.
Open a bottle of 1977 vintage port, and it will be deep red in color and still redolent of the fruit from which it was pressed 20 years ago. Open a 20-year-old tawny and it will probably be light mahogany in color with a bouquet reminiscent of hazelnuts.
Tawny ports are identified by age, but only in increments specified by law: 10, 20, 30 and, occasionally, 40 years. The listed age is the average age of the many different wines in the blend. Some producers age the wines in their tawnies separately, blending them only when they think each component wine is at its best. Others add younger wines to the blend as the years go by, to keep the color from fading too quickly and to retain some of the original fruit flavors. In fact, some tawny ports resemble old sherries, and only the richer taste of the port sets them apart.
No one has described the differences between vintage and tawny port more engagingly than Gerald Asher. In Gourmet magazine some years ago, he wrote: “When we drink a bottle-aged port, especially the vintage port of a prestigious shipper, we are always looking ahead, no matter what its age, wondering where it will go.”
The chief attraction of a wood-aged port, however, is its age. We approach it as we would an interesting character, a personality shaped by life’s experience. It provokes reflection rather than speculation. Perhaps that is why, as Asher wrote, “a wood-aged port comforts in a way a vintage port never can, no matter how impressive.”
“After a simple dinner,” he noted, “give me a glass of a well-aged tawny port and a walnut or two and I am content.”
Tawnies also have a practical advantage over the more prestigious vintage ports. Having spent their formative years in wood, they have been exposed to lots of oxygen. Opened, they will keep for weeks. The vintage wine, once exposed to air, must be drunk fairly soon. And having been moved from barrel to barrel over the years, tawnies have no sediment.
Good tawny ports are not made in large numbers. In some years, there is less tawny produced than vintage port; only the fact that it is less known than vintage makes it available and keeps its price reasonable. Good 20-year-old tawnies sell for $25 to $50; some 30- and 40-year-old tawnies are $100 and more. Inexpensive tawnies are usually blends of undistinguished ruby and white port and are not wines for serious drinkers.
Since the British invented port, it’s not strange that most of the shippers in Portugal are British, as their names imply: Taylor Fladgate, Graham, Dow, Croft, Cockburn and Sandeman, among them.
Several of the Portuguese producers specialize in another kind of tawny, called colheita (kohl-HATE-ah). Colheitas are aged in wood for at least seven years and are sold with a vintage date. They are moved from one barrel to another less frequently than regular tawny port. This gives it less exposure to oxygen and results in a wine that at its best combines the fruit of a vintage port with the nutty flavors of a tawny.
Calem, a Portuguese shipper, and Niepoort, a house with roots in the Netherlands, sell these vintage tawnies, but they are not easy to find in America. Sam’s Wines & Spirits sells the 1985 Niepoort Colheita for $39; a 1968 Quinta do Noval Colheita for $60; and a 1964 Quinta do Noval Colheita for $80. (All of the above were bottled in 1996.) Schaefer’s carries the 1984 Quinta do Noval Old Tawny (bottled in 1996) for $24.
Ruby ports are the simplest and least expensive of all ports. Crusted ports are blends from several years that are bottled after about three years in wood. The crust refers to the sediment the wine leaves in the bottle. Out of style and with little market, crusted ports are being phased out. Late-bottled vintage ports are from a particular year and spend four to six years in wood. The wine’s vintage year and the year it was bottled will both appear on the label.
Among the labels to look for in selecting a good tawny port are Quinta do Noval, Sandeman, Ramos-Pinto, Graham, Warre, Fonseca, Dow and Smith Woodhouse. Keep in mind that tawny ports can differ widely in style. More than in the case of many wines, it’s worth trying several to find a style you like.
