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| Fortify your wine cellar |
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| Anthony Gismondi | Pique News Magazine | 14-01-2009 |
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Passing the port from generation to generation.
I’m often amazed at the reaction of friends when I pull out an old bottle of wine for dinner or dessert. Now by old I mean 10 to 20 years. It is hardly old by wine collector standards, but when you consider the average drinker purchases his or her wine about 20 minutes before they drink it, a decade of cellar aging is impressive, to say the least.
Do you remember all the hype surrounding the millennium celebrations and which wines were likely to be open to mark the day? Big bottles and old bottles were all the talk, but it never really came to pass. I remember thinking that as a wine collector, I would love to be opening and sharing something with my friends from the previous century on that celebrated night.
Alas, my relatives were not in the wine business and no one in my family had considered laying down wines for their great-great-grandchildren’s enjoyment at the turn of the 20th century.
I did manage to get back as far as my birth date, but no turn-of-the-century wines graced my table. That could all change next century for my ancestors and maybe yours, if you are willing to take a chance on the future.
Vintage port has always been a long-lived wine and in exceptional years, when the weather is perfect and the yields are low, it can live for many, many decades. Indeed, the best bottles from the finest vintages will keep comfortably into the next century. You only need the willpower to buy and hold these wines for future generations.
I’m more bullish than ever about vintage port after attending two separate tastings of the fortified elixir in Oporto late last year where the finest years of Croft and Taylor vintage port, spanning the last century, were opened.
It’s difficult to explain how satisfying it can be to taste a wine from 1927 or 1934 or even 1900 that is still in terrific shape for its age. Imagine your relatives opening a bottle of 2003 vintage port, 100 years from now. One can only hope you will be fondly remembered for your foresight and largesse.
Port’s ability to go the distance starts in the steeply terraced vineyards of the upper Douro Valley. The vines themselves grow out of near solid, stone soils in a climate frozen much of the winter and scorched all summer.
Strange sounding grape names such as tinta cão, tinta barroca, touriga nacional, tinta roriz and touriga franca have survived from an ancient list of hundreds of varieties to form the basis of the modern-day port blend.
Interestingly, all port, whether crushed by man or machine, begins its life with a short, violent fermentation that can last as little as 30 hours. The still fermenting grape must, with an alcoholic content of six to seven degrees, is then “run off” into large wooden casks.
At this point, the winemaker blends one part neutral grape brandy for every four parts of partially fermented must, raising the alcoholic content to port’s traditional level of 20 per cent. The fortification process proves lethal to the still active yeast cells, halting the fermentation in its tracks. What is left is port: strong, sweet, fortified, and built to age.
To prepare for its upcoming marathon inside the bottle, vintage port is removed from the barrel at the earliest possible moment on or about the age of two. After that, the longer and cooler the sleep in a still, dark cellar, the better the possibility the bottle will keep perfectly for a century or more.
So how can your ancestors pass the port a generation or two from now?
My strategy is to zero in on the best wine you can and then purchase a half dozen bottles. Plan on drinking or opening three or four of those bottles with your kids, maybe one every decade, and then leave the last two for your grandchildren. They will be happy you did, and you will ensure the wine culture you have been busy building will survive another generation or two.
As mentioned, it is the top names and top vintages that you should be cellaring for the long haul to ensure your gift to the next generation has the best chance of surviving the next 100 years. Today we explore some possibilities with the knowledge there is much hype about the soon-to-be-declared 2007 vintage, making it a fine candidate for future generations as well.
A Port-able Wine Cellar for 2100
Croft 2003 – Now under the Taylor Fladgate’s regime of care and attention, Croft is resurfacing. This is a deliciously sweet port, with big fruit and finesse that will hold for decades. $124
Dow's 2003 – The palate is concentrated with black cherry, liquorice, tea, clove and candied fig flavours all inside a fine tannic frame. $84
Fonseca 2003 – Super ripe black cherry, fruitcake, licorice aromas and flavours. Rich, fat and concentrated, this is one to keep forever, especially in magnum. $130
Graham 2003 – Big juicy blackberry jam, spirity, chocolate, peppery, mineral, licorice flavours. A very rich, warm, sweet style that will need years to come around. $100
Niepoort 2003 – A legendary effort by Dirk Niepoort: rich powerful lush and sweet with a big glossy spicy finish. One for the ages. $94
Quinta Vale D. Maria 2003 – Big, round, fat, concentrated with intense black cherry jam, orange, plum, peppery, licorice, spicy mint flavours. Very good acidity. Big potential. $66
Smith Woodhouse 2003 – Ripe, rich, concentrated palate with spirity black berry, licorice, peppery, pruny flavours. Fine finesse and style with solid backbone. $77
Taylor Fladgate 2003 – Interminably long in the mouth showing off a youthful finish packed full of plums, chocolates and raisins. Lock and load this into the cellar for the next century. $136
Warre's 2003 – Licorice, blackberry jam, black cherry, sweet fig and chocolate flavours with a bright fruit streak. A very fine effort that will require two decades to settle down but will hold much longer. $82
Anthony Gismondi is a globetrotting wine writer who makes his home in West Vancouver, British Columbia. For more of his thoughts on wine log onto www.gismondionwine.com |
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