Port tasting: An introduction to port for us inexperienced

[Morten O]

Hi all,

I'm throwing a port tasting in late February for seven of my beer-loving friends (male, late twenties). Almost all of them are port newbies, so the goal of the tasting is not to try the best port but to show them that port isn't just equal to young tawny. Since many of them are students and/or don't want to spend huge amounts of money on wine they may not like, I've decided that the total cost pr person should be around $40. I will also serve food and snacks (also to see what goes well with different port). With eight people the same amount of bottles seem fair.

WHITE
I think we'll start of with white port. One dry and one medium sweet. While they can be drunk plain I also plan to keep a bottle of Schweppes tonic, some pieces of lime and ice cubes ready so that we all can try some portonics. White port is rare in Denmark, so I'll just buy whatever I can get. I've got one dry Calem and one medium sweet Niepoort that could be used. They both cost about $13. Is it possible to buy lovely white port for this amount of money? I'm a bit worried that these wines won't be a good way to show how lovely (white) port can be, so maybe I should try them myself before the tasting ...

TAWNY
Now it's time for some tawny. Two bottles should do the trick and I've already bought Warre's 10 and 20 YOT. I think a 30 YOT will be a bit too expensive and not really needed since most of them probably never tried such old port. A colheita could be fun, but for inexperienced drinkers like us, it probably won't make any difference to the "tawny experience" (?). On the other hand, tawny is definately the style they know best and thus it could be more fun to put emphasis on the other styles, especially the the ruby styles.

RUBY
Next on the show is ruby, LBV and vintage. I plan to drink them in this order. My suggestion was to serve a ruby from Portal, then Niepoort's 2003 LBV, a 2004 Portal VP and as the grand finale Warre's 1980 VP. It's not easy to find old VP where I live so the 1980 seems like a fine choice (that's what the TN's say).

If I end up with this set of bottles, then the total cost is about $300 (just under $40 pr person). I haven't tried any of the bottles myself so while that may make the tasting exciting for me as well, it may also be a problem if some of them weren't suited for the job. Remember, the wines should be pleasing, subsequently interesting. Remember, I'm trying to pursuade young people with little wine knowledge. We're a beer nation!

Some of these wines need to be decanted. With Roy's excellent article on how many hours VP should be decanted, I'll decant the 2004 VP around noon. What about the Niepoort LBV? I've had few LBV's myself and my personal experience is that they get better after being exposed to air, so maybe I should decant the LBV say 2-4 hours before serving it? Should a ruby (or to be more precise: this ruby) be decanted?

Do you have any suggestions, comments or other information (e.g. non-suited bottles) that may help me persuade my friends to become port lovers? . All comments are most welcome.

[Moses Botbol]

Serve the wines slightly chilled and decant everything hours ahead of time.

Decant them all at the same time.

[Andy Velebil]

Looks like you've done a good job getting things line up. I wouldn't change a thing.

LIke Moses said, decant them all at the same time.

I would decant them all in the morning. (the basic ruby, the tawnys, and the white dont' need decanting).

[Morten O]

Thanks, guys.

I tried the white ones this Superbowl Sunday and they were quite nice and fresh, and definately worth serving as aperitifs for a tasting like this one--either as stand alone or as portonics. Preferably both

I'll report back once the tasting is over so that other newbies like myself can learn a bit on how to create a decent introduction-to-port tasting.

[Andy Velebil]

Morten,

I'd really like to hear how this goes, so be sure to give us the scoop after its done...have fun

[Stewart T.]

I'm also in the process of organizing a Port Tasting for my beer drinking friends, and have much of my lineup set, but this thread sparked the idea for the following question:

You are throwing a Port Tasting for non-Port drinkers. What types and particular Ports would you line up for them. Obviously, price has to be taken into consideration unless your cellar is brimming with "jewels" that you'll gladly sacrifice for the potentially unappreciative...

Here's my picks for styles, and I'll edit this as I go along and fill in the specific wines.

1. White Port - Ramos Pinto Quinta da Lagrima Port (~$15)
2. Ruby Reserva -
3. 10 Year Tawny -
4. 20 Year Twany -
5. LBV -
6. Young Vintage -
7. Older Vintage -
8. Colheita -

What are your?

[Moses Botbol]

1. White Port - Ramos Pinto Quinta da Lagrima Port (~$15)
2. Ruby Reserva -
3. 10 Year Tawny -
4. 20 Year Twany -
5. LBV -
6. Young Vintage -
7. Older Vintage -
8. Colheita -

What are your?

1. White Port - Looking for one myself
2. Ruby Reserva - Don't know many, perhaps Burmester?
3. 10 Year Tawny - Delaforce
4. 20 Year Twany - Sandeman
5. LBV - Ramos Pinto
6. Young Vintage - 91 Croft
7. Older Vintage - 70 Graham
8. Colheita - any older Niepoort

[Morten O]

I think this will be the final line-up:


Noval Fine White, Calem White & Dry, Warre's 10 YOT, Warre's 20 YOT, Noval Fine Ruby, Portal LBV 2000, Quinta do Portal 2005 VP, Warre's 1980 VP .

I need to figure out how to decant the two VP's and the LBV with only one decanter. I may have to pour the wine back and forth from their bottles and into the decanter and back again a few times ... or use something like acassarole? If I do, should the lid stay on -- fully closed or partly closed -- or not be used at all? I will then pour the wine back in to their respective (cleaned) bottles before the guests arrive. Any good advice on these practical matters?

I can't wait! Three more weeks :arrow:

[Glenn E.]

Any old water pitcher will work reasonably well for decanting in a pinch, as will a large flower vase. Make sure you wash it really well though!

[Stewart T.]

Please post back here and let us know how the event turned out. Would love any great ideas that you came up with around the tasting itself - placemats, etc.

As I said, I'll be following in your footsteps and hosting one of these in the near future...

[Morten O]

I sure will, Stewart.

I don't think we will use placemats - mostly due to the fact that it's not a vertical/horizontal tasting, but also because I don't have that many wine glasses. Each person will have two identical glasses and that should do the trick since we got two whites and two tawnies. The again, we do have to try four ruby-style ports, but since these four are chosen to show how each wine (presumably) is better (or at least different) than the previous, it shouldn't be that big a problem. On another level I don't think beer drinkers can handle more than one or two glasses at the same time

Instead of using placemats, I've created a sheet for each wine that we can use for our comments. You can see it here. It's in Danish but it doesn't make that big a difference. It's easy to figure out what it's about. There's the color, the smell, the body and the finish - and in braces hints to what that might be. The numbers do not follow the classic 50-100p scale but are my "tweaked" version that's easier for us newbies to fill out and compare (i.e. we don't care about aging qualities). The goal is to find the best wine AND the best price-value wine. Note that "Pris" (price) is not mentioned as I don't want them to be too biased from the beginning. Once we're done with the tasting I'll inform them of the price of each bottle and then they can (try to) figure out which of the wines that has the best price-value relationship.

[Todd Pettinger]

Well thought-out Morten! Hats off to you!

I also use glass measuring cups (4 litre) when I decant more than one bottle at a time as I too only have one true decanter.

[Todd Pettinger]

And to answer Stewart:

1. White Port - Portal
2. Ruby Reserva - ???
3. 10 Year Tawny - Taylor 10, Warre's Otima 10
4. 20 Year Twany - Taylor, Warre's Otima 20
5. LBV - Noval LBV 2000, 2001; Smith Woodhouse '95; Warre '95
6. Young Vintage - Portal 2003; Noval 2003
7. Older Vintage - Not sure what I would server for this
8. Colheita - Barros 1977 (available in halfs for ~$33C)

[Glenn E.]

I've been thinking about this and collecting notes, so I finally have an answer:

1. White Port - Porto Rocha Lagrima
2. Ruby Reserva - Broadbent Auction Reserve
3. 10 Year Tawny - Warre's Otima 10-yr old
4. 20 Year Tawny - Ramos Pinto 20-yr old Quinta do Bom Retiro
5. LBV - ??? I really haven't found one I like enough to recommend
6. Young Vintage - Porto Kopke 2005 or 2003
7. Older Vintage - Warre's 1983 (or '80 or '85) is reasonably priced
8. Colheita - Porto Rocha 1977 contrast vs Dow's 1982

I would definitely serve two Colheitas just to show the variety available, just like you're serving a young vintage, old vintage, LBV, and Reserva. I picked the Rocha 1977 for its similarity to 20- and 30-yr old Aged Tawnies, and the Dow's 1982 because it's so different (to me) from an Aged Tawny.

[Todd Pettinger]

Come to think of it... you'd almost have to go with two different types of LBV if you wanted to do it right and show the differences between a filtered and non-filtered LBV. Then would you want to do an older unfiltered LBV and a newer unfiltered LBV to contrast further?

Personally I would, but then you are looking at quite a few bottles for one group of people who really may not be accustomed to Port. Mind you, that can certainly show the real diversity of Port and demonstrate that there (should be or) is, really something for every taste out there!

[Roy Hersh]

Make sure you have a white table cloth so it will be easy to discern color. Also have spit cups and dump buckets on the table and it is easiest if you have a case or two of bottled water in the fridge. Otherwise, you've received great advice from the collective Port wisdom of other FTLOPers.

[Todd Pettinger]

Good point Roy.

Some neutral flavoured crackers, nuts or cheese might not be such a bad idea, simply to help cleanse the palate between Ports.

Although they are not typical fare found at a Port tasting (or any other wine tasting from my knowledge) might I suggest Pretzels? Neutral taste, but with a bit of salt in them to reset the palate. I have used them myself when sampling a couple different varieties of Port. At home. Alone.

Todd

[Morten O]

Last weekend I held the tasting for myself and eight good friends. We had a great time and people really enjoyed the event!
I hope that those of you who are thinking of making a tasting for non-Port drinkers can benefit from my experience. I'll be happy to explain further if needed.

Purpose of tasting
The main purpose of the tasting was to let people, who may only have tried a cheap tawny prior to the tasting, taste what 'real' Port is about. I say 'real' as we didn't have a fully matured VP. Also, it didn't really matter if the wines were produced by X or Y, but that they tried the different types and styles.

The wines
The final line-up was as follows and served in this order:

Calem White & Dry (stand alone and as portonic)
Noval Fine White (stand alone and as portonic)
Warre's 10 year old tawny
Warre's 20 year old tawny
Krohn Colheita 1991
Kopke Colheita 1990
Noval Fine Ruby
Quinta do Portal LBV 2000
Quinta do Portal 2005 Vintage Port
Warre's 1980 Vintage Port

The total cost was $40 pr person. I deliberately kept the price low as some of them are students and because it's simply too easy to spend too much money on Port that will perhaps not be fully appreciated. And then there's the issue of availability. A good QPR was the goal.

And the winner is ...
Before going into details about the tasting, we all assigned 1st (3p), 2nd (2p) and 3rd (1p) places to three different wines, and the 'winners' were:
1. Quinta do Portal 2005 Vintage Port (17p)
2. Warre's 1980 Vintage Port (15p)
3. Quinta do Portal LBV 2000 (8p)

Three ruby style Ports! It's interesting that the Port style most people enjoyed was the ruby styled ones, which (almost) none of them had ever tried or knew existed! This is worth giving some thought if you are going to hold a tasting for people who don't know much about Port -- usually beer drinkers. It doesn't really make sense to say that the young VP was the best wine of the tasting. It makes more sense to say that the participants preferred young and old VP over LBV ... and LBV over old tawny etc.

Practical matters
There are unlimited ways to handle the practical matters. I tried to make it as easy and fun as possible. There are pros and cons to this approach. Many of you would not like the way I did things, but you were not the target audience.

Each person had two glasses and that amount seemed appropriate. Place mats would have crossed the t's as it gets a bit difficult to keep track of the wines as people get more and more drunk.

I had made some sheets (link) where I had made my own scoring system. The scores themselves and how great values each category should have matters less, the important part is that it makes people think about what they are drinking and whether or not they like it. I found that it's much faster and easier to draw a circle around the words put on paper than having to write them yourself.
Example: For "taste" I had put fruits, spices, tree, earth, bitter, sweet, alcohol, one dimensional, complex, in balance, etc.
For people who are not used to put words on the taste of a wine, it's of much help to guide them a bit. For experienced Port drinkers, it wouldn't make much sense. Some of the words may be too specific while others may be too generic ("fruits"). Some of them may even be a bit misleading or make them biased. But it doesn't really matter since the point is not to describe the wine in detail, but to enjoy it and compare it with the other types. The "price" tag was put to let them either put an amount to what they would pay for the bottle and/or what they thought it had cost and then at the end of the tasting I would reveal the price. This would lead to some sort of overall QPR understanding and overview. Some were pleasantly surprised, others not. Some of them did have 'expensive' taste.

The LBV and the two VP's were all decanted about 8-10 hours. This was probably too long time for the LBV, but adequate for the VP's -- especially such a young VP and this specific older VP.

Accompanying the tawnies I served different nuts and for the ruby style Port I served different kinds of chocolate (>60%). Especially the chocolate was a hit. It can be difficult to figure out exactly what nuts to buy. But it all disappeared never the less.

Since we're a bunch of heavy drinkers, there was no such thing as spitting or dumping the remaining Port. This means that we all had about a bottle of Port each, and on top of that champagne, beer and shots. We had a lot of fun.

I was worried that we wouldn't be able to appreciate the 1980 VP after nine bottles, but luckily that didn't seem like a problem at all. At least no-one complained about wines tasting the same and I didn't have any issues with it either.

The tasting, step by step
For details on each wine, see next section.

I had decided that we were not able to taste all the (finer) nuances of the wines, so there was no need to serve only neutral tasting food and other beverages that night. And it turned out to be of no problem. I would say that there were other more severe 'challenges' than this one, e.g. the amount of alcohol consumed!

As a starter I served a bottle of champagne to ease up the tension and just get prepared for the tasting. A fine choice. I guess any sparkling wine or other kind of beverage would do.
Then we opened the two white Ports and tasted them both stand alone and as portonics (with slices of lemon and ice cubes). Then we had dinner, and I made a quite good chili con carne ... or rather a carne con chili as it was hot but definitely not too hot to be able to taste anything afterwards. Yeah, I know - chili con carne at a Port tasting!? You must be nuts! It sounds a lot worse than it was. No-one made any comments about not being able to taste properly afterwards and I know them well enough to say that they would have told me had it been a problem. After dinner we started on the tawnies and progressed to the ruby styled one's. We didn't finish all the tawnies at first and returned to them after we had executed all the ruby style ones. The only bottle that did not get emptied was the White & Dry by Calem.
After eight Port wines it was time to put some water on the table to ease the mouth. This was probably the only 'mistake' of the tasting. It should have been there earlier, preferably all the time. But then again, no-one asked for it and they would have had they wanted some water. We are used to drink quite heavily, which might explain a thing or two. After the 'official part' of the tasting we had more beer, champagne and shots.


My very short description of the wines
Calem White & Dry (stand alone): Not really that pleasant as stand alone. A bit too dry for my taste and the taste was a bit weird.

Calem White & Dry (portonic): As portonic I could easily drink a lot of those as an aperitif or just during sommertime. Nice and easy. But not as good as the real deal, gin & tonic. I've actually had this before, and it need to be drunk right away or it will turn sour and unpleasant.

Noval Fine White (stand alone): Very enjoyable, sweet, taste of perfume/flower and fruits. Summertime in my mouth! I'll buy a few of them for sure. It may stay drinkable for a few weeks if stored in the fridge.

Noval Fine White (portonic): There wasn't more left of the Port to try this combo

Warre's 10 year old tawny: A bit boring and not as nutty as I prefer a tawny. Too much alcohol showed and ... well, I don't remember much more which also says something about it.

Warre's 20 year old tawny: I would rather buy this than the 10 YOT and drink it half as often. Very nice. Lots of nuts and what I refer to as a "classic" tawny taste and smell. There's no such thing as a classic tawny but I think you know what I mean and my Port-o-cabulary is just too weak to express my thougts. Medium lengths if I remember correctly. I would like to have one of these for everyday drinking. I ranked it 2nd. I enjoyed it very much. I would like to buy a 30 YOT but they are quite expensive ... From a cost/benefit analysis they might not be worth the money. Yada yada ... need to try a lot more than just the Dalva 30 YOT to jump to any hasty conclusions! Yummy.

Krohn Colheita 1991: Very nice taste and length. Has this "classic" taste. Definately worth a re-buy. And such a nice bottle.

Kopke Colheita 1990: This was served right after the 1991, and it was half as good. A bit more bitter and had a weird taste. Wouldn't buy it again. And the bottle is ugly!

Noval Fine Ruby: Powerful nose and taste of fruits and fruits and fruits. Although it didn't have a 'frame' to hang on to, it's still fun to drink lemonade with 20% alcohol! It's cheap and I might buy it again. I consider myself lucky to enjoy such cheap wines. May it last! I think I ranked it 3rd because of the QPR relationship. I mean, if the LBV had showed same amounts of fruit in the nose and taste, it would've been a killer for the price of an LBV.
Someone told me that you can blend sparkling water with rubies. It's worth a try.

Quinta do Portal LBV 2000: Compared to other LBV's I've had, it was a bit dull. I blame the 10 hours of decanting and because it was served right after the ruby I almost couldn't smell or taste it! So weird. The others had no trouble so. It's probably just me. I wouldn't mind buying it again to see if my first impression was correct. I've got the 1996 LBV from Quinta do Portal and despite being different vintages it may still confirm or deny my impression of that house's LBV's. More LBV for me, please! I like the QPR relationship of LBV's.

Quinta do Portal 2005 Vintage Port: Ahh yes! Purple and black and wonderful. I really like young VP and this one was right down my alley. Lots of fruit and well balanced with tannins. I ranked it 1st.

Warre's 1980 Vintage Port: I knew the cost and couldn't keep from thinking that it didn't show value for the money. It may still be too young to show what it's capable of. I did enjoy it, but would never buy it again. I'd rather drink 2-3 young Portal's or 3-4 LBV's. But what do I know about older VP - this is in fact the oldest VP I've ever tasted! (Luckily it was ok despite some worries when it was decanted.)

Next tasting
I think the next tasting will focus on one or two styles, e.g. pure ruby and/or LBV. Maybe throw in a young VP to show who's the boss. Focus should still be a sound QPR.

Had it not been for this introduction to Port, and thereby convincing the vast majority of the attendees that Port is truly lovely, I wouldn't be able to attract any of my friends for more specific tastings but now I think I have a bunch of people to share the Port with, which is exactly what I could have hoped for. Actually none of my friends disliked any of the wines ... erhhhh perhaps with the exception of Calem's White & Dry but that's not real port, is it?

[Al B.]

Morten

A great write up and very interesting to hear of the experience of you and your friends. I'm also really pleased for you that you have now found a group of people to share your port with.

I'll toast your success and wish you many more successful events in the future when I get home tonight!

Alex

[Todd Pettinger]

Well done Morten!!! A truly interesting read.

I love the fact that you knew your friends and audience and took certain liberties with things like which neutral foods to pair and which nuts to serve with which Port(s). That is great and shows that Port doesn't have to be a stuffy drink of tradition and history... unless you want it to!

Todd