Port is a powerful sweet wine that serves as an after-dinner drink or often as dessert itself. It is a variety that approaches the limits of the allowable alcohol level for wines. The higher alcohol level is obtained by stopping the fermenting process by adding brandy to the fermenting wine. What results is a naturally sweet wine of great power, depth and finesse. While many nations have sweet wines they call port, nothing can match or rival the port wines from its home, the Douro River region of Portugal.
The creme de la creme of port wine is classified “vintage port,” which is made only in those years when the grapes achieve near total perfection. A vintage port receives no processing other than two years of barrel aging. The wine attains its magic in the bottle during a period of years - thus the legend of buying quantities of port and storing it for long periods of time. Most other port wines are held in barrels for several years longer than vintage port, as the additional barrel time allows the wine longer contact with the wood and air to mellow.
Late-bottled vintage port is made from grapes of a single excellent but not vintage year, and is held in barrels for from four to six years. The resultant wine will need no further bottle aging.
Tawny port is a blend that has been aged in barrels for as long as 40 years to mellow and to develop a velvety texture and rich flavor. Because of a longer time in the wood, the deep red color fades to a yellow/brown, and thus the name, tawny.
Ruby port is the most readily available, popular and least expensive form of the wine, and like the tawny, can be a blend of many grape varieties from different years.
The House of Sandeman has been supplying the world with some of the finest port wines for more than 200 years. If you cannot remember their wines for their attributes, you will definitely remember its logo of the silhouetted, cape-draped figure of the "don" on every label, a logo that has become one of the most recognized in all the world of wine.
Sandeman Founders Reserve Porto ($19)Sandeman Founders Reserve Porto, the company's most popular wine, is a big, sweet, powerful drink, full of an intense berry fruit flavor and that ever-present and delightfully haunting incense-like background.
Sandeman Founders Reserve Porto, like all other ports, contains about 20 percent alcohol, as compared with about 13 percent for a table wine. Try this port as a dessert by serving it with anything chocolate, pouring it over vanilla ice cream or even over plain pound cake. Trust us, the people you serve it to will talk about it for years.
Sandeman 10 Years Old Tawny Porto ($30) The bright and inviting brown hue of this wine identifies it as a tawny port.
Although sweet, it is drier than most other ports and possesses a spicy and nutty flavor, which is coupled with a positive oak and caramel background.
This wine is a delight and can spice up any gathering.
Sandeman 20 Years Old Tawny Porto ($52) This wine has a spicy and nutty flavor, coupled with a positive oak and caramel background, gained from its 20 years resting in oak.
Sandeman 2011 Vintage Porto ($80)The 2011 Vintage Port is the latest declared port vintage and is the product of an almost perfect grape-growing year.
It is a magnificently full-bodied wine with an expansive fruit and incense-like aroma and a haunting flavor that rightly deserves its reputation as the king of the hill.
Nixa resident Bennet Bodenstein is a wine columnist and manages ArticlesOnWine.com. He can be reached at frojhe1@att.net.
