Ports known for sweetness, fruity flavor
News-Leader (on-line) | 27-01-2010 | Articles
Port is a naturally sweet, fortified red wine that achieves its sweetness by adding brandy to the fermenting grape juice, thus stopping fermentation before all of the grape sugar has been converted to alcohol. Port wines are blessed with a full, fruity flavor and possess a powerful perfumed, flowery aroma that defies description.
Port wines are classified by type. Vintage port is made only in those years when the grapes achieve near total perfection and receive no processing other than two years of barrel aging. The wine attains its "magic" in the bottle over a period as long as 30 years. During that time, it will throw a heavy sediment and must be filtered or decanted prior to drinking.A late bottled vintage port is made of grapes from a single, but excellent year, and held in barrels four to six years. It needs no further bottle aging and will not throw a sediment.
Tawny port is a blend that has been kept in barrels eight to 20 years to mellow and develop its velvet texture and rich flavor and producing a lighter and browner color than the other styles.
Ruby port is the most popular style of this wine. Like tawny, ruby port is a blend that best exemplifies the style of the house the wine represents, kept for several years in the aging tanks to marry and mature before bottling.
- Osborne 2003 Late Bottled Vintage Porto ($18.99). Although not a vintage year, the grapes did produce a vibrant wine with a hint of oak aroma and an expansive fruit flavor.
- Sandeman Founders Reserve Porto ($18.29) displays a big, sweet wine, full of berry fruit flavors and a delightfully haunting incense-like background, a signature of Sandeman Port. It is the most popular port in the company's line.
- Cockburns Special Reserve ($18.29) is a soft, elegant sipping wine, loaded with fruit flavors and perfectly balanced with an almost overpowering aroma and rich structure. The finish is fruity and seems to last forever.
Dows Boardroom Tawny ($23.99). The bright and inviting brownish hue of this wine identifies it as a tawny port. Although somewhat sweet, it is drier than most other ports and possesses a spicy and nutty flavor coupled with an oak and caramel background.
- Osborn Ruby Port ($12.99) is a big wine, sweet, full of berry fruit flavors and the warmth that port wines are famous for.
- Graham's Six Grape Reserve Porto ($19.99) is an interesting blend of six local grapes from the port grape growing region in Portugal. It is a dignified and flavorful port with a seductive flavor and aroma.
- Montevina Terra D'Oro Zinfandel Port ($24). California zinfandel grapes were vinified exactly as one would a true Portuguese port by the master winemakers of Montevina. This port is a true delight that displays the flavors of strawberries, raspberries and almost every other berry flavor you know and even some you may not know and proves that Americans can make a port as good as the Portuguese.
