Eat Dessert First: Part 1, Port

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare presents the first in a series of blogs about dessert wines.

Port (also called Porto or Oporto, after the Portuguese city where the drink originated) is a fortified dessert wine, which means that it has added alcohol so it packs a whole lot more of a wallop than your standard table wines. It was invented by the British, who were at war with France at the time. Due to wartime regulations, the British had to drink Portuguese wines. To make the wines stable for shipping, a little brandy was added, and Port wine was born.

Like Champagne and other sparklers, for a European wine to be called "Port," it must be made in the city of Oporto. The grapes are grown and fermented in the Douro Valley, and then (most Ports) transported to the suburbs of Oporto where the wines are matured and finished.

There are a few different types of Port, including white Port, but the most common ports are: Vintage, Tawny and Ruby.

Ruby Port is the best-selling type of port, it's simple, fruity and easy to drink.

Tawny Port is sweet and versatile, and can be enjoyed with dessert or as an aperitif. In contrast to Ruby, Tawny has more notes of nuts and caramel, as opposed to fruit.

Vintage Port is the wine from the best grapes of a particular year, bottled after only 2 years of aging in barrels. This leaves an incredibly tannic wine so it needs a tremendous amount of time to age in the bottle before it's drinkable: 20 years or more. Due to the tannins, Vintage ports often have a lot of sediment and benefit highly from aeration.Late Bottled Vintage also is from a specific year, but it's aged for up to 6 years in barrels and is drinkable upon release.

Port should be served at a chilly room temperature, although one source I found said that tawny ports are delicious when chilled during warmer months.

A few years ago, I went through a Port "phase." I fell in love with the sweet red, and I drank a lot of Port over the course of a few months. And when I say that I drank "a lot of Port," I really mean that I drank a lot of Port. So much so that I got sick of it to the point that even the smell of it would make me turn away. Until recently, it had been about 3 years since I'd endulged. But, for the sake of science (read: this blog), I had to move beyond my aversion and dive back into it head-first. I mean, what would a student of wine be worth without at least a little bit of knowledge about this Portuguese pearl?

Luckily, I apparently am over it, and Port is still delicious. I enjoyed a glass of wine with a special dinner with my best friend a few weeks ago, and again with Thanksgiving dessert. When I started to do my research, one of the first things I read is that it's easy to get carried away with dessert wines as a whole, which was exactly what happened to me. Dessert wines, like ice cream or cookies, are designed to be a "treat," an indulgence.

While Ports are classically good with strong cheeses such as Roquefort and Gorgonzola, I am fanatical about a nice glass of port with a rich chocolate dessert. If you've never had Port before, I urge you to pick up a bottle and experiment! Let me know what you think!