For The Love Of Port

I was impressed to receive a wine list of about a dozen Portuguese wines by the glass. At the beginning of the flight the flight crew came around and offered either water or Tawny Port. Duh!

With dinner, my first course consisted of a 2006 Luis Pato Espumante "Maria Gomes Bruto" - a nice enough sparkling number but a bit too fruity for me, as I like bubbly that is quite dry. I am sure this probably goes over well because of the Pato name, but it is not my style.

I really wanted to try the Lavradores de Feitoria Douro Branco, but they were out of it. I had to settle instead for a 2006 Esporao Branco Reserva DOC, from the Alentejo which was refreshing with some honeysuckle and lemon curd and tropical fruit notes. Again I wanted something to pair with my food and this was too sweet.

With my third course ... beef ... I finally had a real winner from the Douro. 2003 Quinta Sa de Baixo. Never heard of it, but as soon as I put my nose in the glass I was relieved. Really nice and bright plum, tar and prunes in this one, with a load of chocolate on the finish. 92 points and quite a fun drink.

Instead of a sweet dessert, I had a five cheese assortment plate. Great stuff and perfect with a young VP. Andy will recognize the producer and so will Stewart and others who met Lucia at the recent US Port-Portugal wine tastings. This was a 2004 Quinta das Tecedeiras VP. Yowza, this is really enjoyable. Dark fruits and lots of earthy notes. I have a more formal TN that I will put into the next newsletter.

Not bad for a flight from NJ to Lisboa. More to come!


Oh yeah, they also had a Churchillºs white Port on the list and had tiny bottles with screw caps of Grahamºs something or other.

Quinta das tecedeiras e Quinta Sá de Baixo are from the same producer. The producer is Dão Sul and it's a huge wine company in portugal with wines in almost every region.
Tecedeiras are usually great wines

Yes I do like TAP air. Its the 2001 Graham's LBV that they serve and a white port (I forget which one).

Now if only we could get US airlines to even serve food to us in "cattle class" it would be nice....let alone Port!

As for the 2004 Quinta das Tecedeiras VP: I've only had the 2003, which was poured at the tasting and I enjoyed it. I would really like to try some of their other Ports..Dão Sul also make a couple of really good dry wines too.

Well on the flight home (or at least back to Newark) I wound up getting to try the Quinta das Tecedeiras VP once again, but this time it was the rarely seen 2002 vintage. It was really good and hit the spot (a couple of times) and I enjoyed it as much as the 2004. Now trying to seriously evaluate wine on an airplane is foolhardy, but I was not trying to do so, just enjoying some really good purple Port. Now I am temp. stuck at the Newark airport, with nary a Port in sight. There is a restaurant here called, O Douro and is supposedly Portuguese (lots of Portuguese folks live here in Newark ... the most of any place in the USA) but the lines are insane and I can't see the back bar to tell what is there.