So, my last whiskey thread produced good advice and allowed me, in combination with other reading, to pick a pretty good whiskey.
I would now like advice on port. I have tried both red and white port and prefer red, especially when eaten with dark chocolate.
So, what should I know about port? What are good bottles/brands of port that won’t cost more than about 50$?
One thing I have found is that I often tire quickly of ports which are quite sweet. I understand that a port pretty much has to be sweet by definition but I think I’d prefer one on the lower end.
I don’t drink much Port because I find them too sweet, but they do make a nice digestif from time to time. I prefer vintages because the richness in body and tannins complements the sweetness of the wine and pair especially well with strong cheese and/or nuts at the end of a meal. Unfortunately, you will not find vintage port for under $50, and is not meant to be a daily drinker.
Tawnies may be more in the budget range you’re looking for but I haven’t drank enough of them to say anything worthwhile. Some of them can be aged for 20 years or more but they lack the complexity of vintages.
If you find Port wine sweet like I do, try sherry instead. It’s a fortified wine just like Port but the fortification occurs after fermentation making it a naturally dry wine, although sweetness is added to many of them later. You can find dry sherries but you cannot find dry Ports just by the nature of how they are made.
What you are looking for is an LBV port from Sandeman’s or Cockburn’s. Maybe Taylor Fladgate. LBV’s give you the flavor of vintage port without the price.
What you want, if you want slightly cheaper, is South African Port (well, called that outside the EU, I think they call it Ruby Cape/Tawny Cape there): something like this 21-yo vintage.
Like our brandies, where even the cheapest are made exactly the same way as fine cognac, our ports hold their own against the originals. At least, that’s my tasting experience. And I do love my port.
All the sherry available in my province seems to be from Spain. Port also seems to be chiefly from Portugal. Bummer that it’s that limited.
Vermouth seems to be quite similar to sherry and port. Opinions on that?
Definitely recommend Cockburns or any decently priced ‘vintage’ or ‘vintage reserved’ Port. Look for price reductions if you want to try something more fancy. At Christmas, I bought a bottle of some reserve- maybe Taylors- that was reduced from £15/$22 to £10/$15. Jolly nice it was too. Haven’t tried anything more expensive.
I don’t drink much usually and don’t like ‘normal’ wine- too vinegary and lacking in sweetness for me. But I love Port (don’t drink from a mug- you can misjudge how much you’ve drunk…)
I bought a case of Graham’s 20-year-old back in the early 90s when I was living in Portugal. It held up very well. If the OP wonders why some ports from Portugal have vintners with names like Taylor and Graham, it’s because in the late 19th century a phylloxera infestation destroyed grape crops in the Douro Valley, putting many vintners out of business. British companies bought up the land and waited until there was a solution to the problem.
A sherry I’ve been enjoying lately is Lustau East India Solera (Spain). I like it a lot.
Vintage is better than LBV, but I figure the 80/20 rule applies here: stepping up from ordinary port to LBV gets you 80% of the improvement (that you would get from going all the way to vintage) for 20% of the price increase.
I’d never drink port with chocolate - a dry savoury snack is better, including the classic cheeseboard and cracker selection.
Vermouth’s flavoured with bitter herbs though, isn’t it? You can drink 'em neat, classically as an aperitif, or mix them for a martini or manhattan or similar. Do that with my good port and you will be out of my good graces for a long time.
Good, because I bought a bottle of sherry on a whim the other week and it tastes more than faintly reminiscent of soy sauce. Clearly I need to find a different brand.
I had a tasting of a vintage at one of the port houses in Porto, and I have to say it really kicked the ass of everything else. However, for the cost, and for the fact that vintages have to be consumed much faster than anything else (weeks or days, compared to months), I consider them nothing more than a splurge. A tasty, tasty splurge.
Brand-wise you can’t go wrong with Taylor Fladgate. There are “independent” port producers out there, but they’re tougher to find in North America. I prefer tawnys to rubys myself, as they’re a little less sweet, but as noted, it’s a sweet wine and you’re not going to get away from that.
Inner Stickler: Ya gotta do yer homework. I’ve found most non-Portuguese ports and domestic sherries to be undrinkable, but then I lived two blocks from the Port Wine Institute in Lisbon. They opened a 30-year-old white port one evening; it was like silk.
If you have access to California wineries, several of them produce ports that are quite good. Rutherford Winery has been known to produce a zinfandel port on occasion that borders on transcendent.
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Good, because I bought a bottle of sherry on a whim the other week and it tastes more than faintly reminiscent of soy sauce.
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Did you get it at a liquor store or grocery store? Cooking sherry is vile and salty stuff. As the Frugal Gourmet would plead, “If you can’t drink it, don’t cook with it!”
Dow’s is the best I’ve ever had, but my friends and I started getting it far too cheap because someone had mis-priced it. When they were later accurately priced, we were unpleasantly surprised. I haven’t had it in 10 years, though, and the bottles look different now.
That said, I like almost any port, and even their 20 year looks to be only about $59.99. So get the 10 year, at $34 or so.
Liquor store. I know enough that any liquor I might see at Cub has been salted within an inch of its life. I could see the stuff I have adding something to a sauce or stew but it’s not very pleasant on its own.
Let me build on what scabpicker mentioned, which is tawny port.
Tawny ports are usually seen with designations on them like 10 year, 20 year, 30 year etc. which means the average age of the wine inside is that number of years old. I prefer the 20 year, as I think its the best balance of age and price (because of course the longer they age it the more it will cost)
Vintage ports with a single year designation on them are ruby ports, and as mentioned before Late Bottled Vintage Port (LBV) is somewhere in between since it’s a single vintage port bottled after four to six years in wood, which gets you some of the characteristics of vintage port at a more modest price.
The main difference between a ruby port and a tawny is the fact that the tawny is intentionally exposed to the air, so it becomes oxidized. When oxidized the flavor profile changes from ripe cherries and chocolate to dried fruits and nuts, and is often perceived as less sweet.
Producers you can check out are Dow, Graham, Fonseca, Sandeman, Taylor and Cockburn (there are other good ones but this is a start).
So far as sherry goes, they are made in several styles ranging from bone dry (fino) to dessert level sweet (sweet oloroso and PX). I find the dry oloroso style is richer, but not terribly sweet, so that may be the one for you. (You can check out this NYT article for more details on the styles and also some producers to look for).
That’s because Sherry is produced in Spain and Port is made in Portugal, just like how true Champagne is made in the Champagne region of France. Other countries can make sherry and port, but it would only be in the name of the style only, just as how California wineries make Champagne-method wines and call them sparkling.
Sherries may be more in your interest because they are drier than Port and cheaper as well for a comparable quality. The one thing about Sherries is they do not age and you want to buy one that is “fresh”. The sweeter the Sherry, the longer it will be drinkable but if you’re buying a dry type, you want to drink it within a year of its bottling, (not when you bought it).
Dry Sherries I would suggest would be Manzanilla or Fino types, which are light and delicate with a slightly nutty aroma. They are great as aperitifs, with some cured meat or olives, just like how the Spaniards drink them. Although I don’t drink Sherry with a dinner course, the acidity in the dry Sherries should pair well with seafood as well. And make sure to serve them chilled like you would with a light-bodied white wine.
Vermouth is not at all like Sherry or Port, (not to say that Sherry and Port are similar). The only similarity they have is that they are all fortified. The biggest difference would be that Vermouth is flavoured with herbs and botanicals and is very aromatic. Some people might say it tastes “medicinal”, which would be ironic because that’s how it was used before people started it drinking it for pleasure.
In any case, I think it’s great that you want to try out new drinks and I hope you find something you like.
