Wine Each Week: Dow 10’s Year Tawny Port

I seem to be one of the few wine writers I know who really appreciates Port and dessert wines. I love them. And it’s NOT about a sweet tooth, a sugary drink, it’s an appreciation of what balance, finely crafted winemaking and several hundred years of history can produce. Many of my colleagues appear to tolerate it, some even have disdain for it. But one of the great joys of the wine world is Port – true Port from Portugal - and Dow’s has been at the process since 1798. With redefined packaging their 10 Year is available and ready to convert wine drinkers into Port lovers.

The immediate sensation on the nose is one of candied cranberry – a supremely satisfying aroma perhaps remanding you of Thanksgiving or Christmas. But this isn’t a holiday wine. That first sip is not a sweet bomb, but a measured amalgam of leather, tobacco, black cherry compote, blueberry and dried cranberry. What’s remarkable about the 10 is that you are introduced to Port in proper fashion, realizing it’s not a one trick sweet pony. About the third and fourth sips you begin to notice the acidity – bright and clean – the light sweetness, the layers of fruit and wood flavors, the utter enjoyment of a beverage that offers many dimensions, but does not overwhelm you. You don’t need to worry about decanting, and this will last a month after it has been opened. So go procure some Port and start experiencing what you’ve been missing.

ORIGIN: Upper Douro Valley, Portugal

ALCOHOL: 20%

PRICE: $37/ 750ML

SCORE: 91 POINTS

DOW’S

“Shooting at the Walls of Heartache”…with Port

High school – I remember the cool song from Scandal with Patty Smyth, The Warrior. Still love the song (the video is so dated it’s either funny or creepy depending on your perspective).

Anyhow what is a warrior? Simply put, someone who fights for a cause and in the case of the song, it’s for love, hence shooting at the walls of heartache. I’d rather fight for wine. Port to be specific. And Warre’s Warrior Port is the reward for any battle. This widely available Port offers rich, but not overactive, fruits of blackberry, candied cherry, mulberry, and boysenberry tempered with an earthiness and sweet cedar. So it’s not “sweet” fruit, but mildly sweet fruit back-ended by a strong acidity, making this a much better Port for foods. A terrific value this is ready to drink now and ready to be drunk often. So whether you’re having a bad day, a great day or just one of those days, fight for your right to a terrific wine at a terrific price.

ORIGIN: Upper Douro Valley, Portugal

PRICE: $19/ 750ML

ALCOHOL: 20%

SCORE:  90 POINTS

Kit Kat Port: A Sweet Little Halloween

This time of year people always want to pair wine and Halloween candy. The problem is that most wines are not very combatable. Sugar affects the palate with most wines giving the wine - red or white - a bitter, muted taste. But Portugal comes to the rescue. Fortified wine like Ports or late harvest wines have enough sugary girth to work with candy, surprisingly balancing out the overt sweetness of the candy itself.

Dow’s 2011 Late Bottled Vintage Port & Kit Kats

Kit Kats have an immediate milk chocolate note and you don’t get the crispness until you eat it, which is less flavor and more texture.

Dow’s LBV Port from Portugal offers up muted berry flavors like red plum, raspberry and dark cherry along with a lack of sugariness, which means that the wine is not obliterated by the sweetness of the candy, actually quite the opposite, the Port is drawn down, but enhanced by the milk chocolate.

Cockburn’s Special Reserve Port
With grapes harvested from the steep terraced hillsides in Northern Portugal’s Quinta dos Canais, this velvety Port offers sweet blueberry, blackberry, vanilla, and the acidity and mature fruit tempers the sweetness and buttery-ness of the candy. The best thing about most Ports is that they offer minimal sweetness, making them available to match with different foods.

Bottom line is that you need to try various pairing for yourself and find what works best for you. At any rate, regardless of the season or holiday, Port should always be in your house!

Locations, Locations, Locations…Wine

Wine is a global affair, yet most wine production facilities/wineries, only make wine from one place – where they are located. Some have a few vineyards in say France and California, or something like that, (Paul Hobbs for example has vineyards in California and Argentina) but few wineries offer wines made by them from places across the globe in a single portfolio. Yes, it’s been done before, but with little success. But Locations Wine is finally getting it right.

Just after the 2010 harvest, Dave Phinney was at the Charles de Gaulle airport, lamenting how existing wine regulations were limiting his ability to make the kind of wine he wanted. He joked about possibilities, imagining what he could do if there were no rules. What if you could blend across French appellations? What if there were no rules. Standing at the airport a taxi pulled curbside and he noticed the very distinctive “F” sticker on the license plate. His mind exploded with thought and possibility. What if he could take this idea and do this not only in France, but also in Italy, Spain, and Portugal? Since great wine is made all over the world, what if you could produce a range of wines across all of the major wine regions of the world paying homage to each country? Enter Locations, with wines from California, France, Portugal, Texas, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Oregon, and Washington. Pretty impressive. I sampled through three of the wines – line priced at $19.99 - the Portuguese being my favorite of the three, though terrific quality with all of them.

The Italian, a blend of Negromaro and Nero d’ Avola offers black berry, brambleberry, pomegranate and cedar, bing cherry.

The Portugal blend of Touriga Nacional, Trincaderia, and Touriga Franca is full of black cherry, black berry, rhubarb, cassis, boysenberry and is earthy and vibrant.

The French Rosé, all Grenache, is strawberry, hibiscus, rose water and violets with a bold acidity, and that mineral/earthy quality that Grenache offers. Locations Wines is a capital idea that lets you travel the Big World of Wine.

How Sweet It Is! Port for the People.

There’s an old saying that people talk dry but drink sweet – meaning they secretly drink sweet wines but are embarrassed to admit it. I love sweet wines and frankly there are some terrific versions out there; late harvest, Ports, fortified wines. My frustration with some winemakers is that they are adamantly opposed to sweet wines, believing they are one trick ponies, simplistic tedious wines not worthy of their efforts. I beg to differ. First off, it’s not the place of winemakers, nor wine writers to suggest a style of wine, or type of wine is somehow inferior. I firmly believe there is a place for all wines (as long as they’re made well, of course). The best sweet wines can be terribly expensive - cheap-o versions are akin to cough syrup, so what to do? Easy, try Graham’s Six Grapes. Graham’s has been a Port player since 1820 and since most vintage Port is pricy, they crafted this everyday sweetie, which frankly does the job admirably. With candied cherry and raspberry, nutmeg and clove, and a nice little acidity, this is one of those wines where you’ll realize you’ve had a lot in a little bit of time. It’s balanced and perfect for after dinner and you can find this most everywhere. Chill it down just a touch then sit back and admit it - you like sweet wines.
ORIGIN: Portugal

PRICE: $18/ 750ML

ALCOHOL: 19.5%

BOOZEHOUNDZ SCORE:  88 POINTS

A Port in Any Storm

Oporto, from my visit in 2010

If you don’t know much about Port – and I am referring to real Port from Portugal, not the California-styled “ports” which are fine, but usually overtly sweet things often made from non-traditional Port grapes, you need to understand a few things. 1st off: Port is a place, Oporto in Portugal, and just like Champagne is a place, the wine folks of these regions take exception when outsiders use their place-name for selling their own wine. Therefore Port actually means wines from Portugal. 2^nd: “vintage” port is one of those wines which is meant to age, and I don’t mean across the long hot summer. Ports are made every year, but only when the wine folks of Portugal are nearly uniform in agreement do they “declare” a vintage (the last declared vintage was 2007) which means they believe these wines are so exceptionally good you need to buy this vantage and age these puppies. I cannot disagree.

Croft has been part of the Port game for 400 years, so, let’s just agree they know what the hell they’re doing. Only 5,000 cases were made so this baby, while pricy is ready to drink now, or will lay down for a good decade and become more mellow and sweet and rich, unlike my grandmother (god rest her soul). The Croft 2011 Vintage Port is viscous and rich, with hefty black cherry, slightly smoky wood, dusty cinnamon, suburb tannins and proper acidic undertones – this is why people drink port – not to get a sugar rush, but to bask in the rich, opulent, smooth wine which is just so damn fun to drink. The night I tasted this there was a full moon and I sat on my deck basking in the moonlight and sipping Croft Port. And this, my friends is how you drink Port – slowly and on purpose. If you can find the Croft, buy it. CROFT PORT

ORIGIN: Douro Valley, Portugal

PRICE: $ 50/ 750/ml (price is approximate)

ALCOHOL: 17.5%

BOOZEHOUNDZ SCORE:  91 POINTS