For The Love Of Port

It can be from anywhere else in the world, except Portugal. Just wondering what your fave is?

Well they call 'em "port" but they're really just great dessert wines. There are a number of really excellent Aussie "stickies" that I enjoy, especially Yalumba's Museum Reserve Tawny.

I agree with Glenn and add the Tokay and Muscat versions as well. Very yummy and easy to pop and pour.

I've had the Yalumba's Museum Reserve Tawny and it is quite nice, but I don't know that I'd call it my favorite. On the other hand, I haven't come up with a better alternative yet. On the Madeira side, I've really enjoyed the V. Sattui Madeira.

Ficklin's (California) 20 year old Tawny.

It's been a while, but I've had a couple South African "ports" that were very good and probably the closest to the real deal. I even served the inexpensive tawny one to a friend blind who swore it was Portuguese and not SA, even after I showed him the bottle. now if I could just remember the name....

What, nobody mentioned a single port-style from Missouri!!?!?!?!

Roy Hersh wrote:What, nobody mentioned a single port-style from Missouri!!?!?!?!

Well, I have a Boulder Creek Winery (Colorado) bottle in my cellar too, but as I recall from tasting it at the winery, it won't win a favorite award. But I take my empty shipping boxes there for credit and it was good enough to pick up a bottle.

Roy Hersh wrote:What, nobody mentioned a single port-style from Missouri!!?!?!?!

I've had Texas, Washington, and California ports but not one from Missouri. I didn't think any of them were really worth mentioning. One of the Texas ports was a reasonable quaff in its own right, but not something that'd I'd go out of my way to purchase. Hardy's Whiskers Blake (another Aussie stickie) is similar in style, better, and cheaper.

Although it has been some years since I've had a number of port-style stickies from Missouri, I was REALLY impressed with the quality I had. They were from three wineries in Augusta, which was the very first AVA in the USA ... only awarded that status in 1980. But at the end of the 19th century, Missouri was the 2nd most prolific wine growing area in the USA with huge production. I know this is all about Port, but Norton (aka Cynthiana) makes for some pretty amazing dry reds too. Lots of good bubbly from Mo. as well. But their port, the most memorable of which was a great Hermannhof product. They were around since the mid-1800s and the area around them (Hermann, MO) was producing about 3 million gallons of wine per year. Their 2nd coming began in the mid-1970s. Great juice and I hope to try one of their port-style bottlings again someday.

There was also a decent producer in Virginia, Denis Horton who made some very decent port-style wines with indigenous root stock brought to VA by the winemaker/owner. Denis was making some fun adaptations back in the early to mid-1990s. Never reached the quality of a Ficklin though.

Glad to hear that Eric has discovered the V. Sattui style of madeira they produce. It used to be great when they were $22 directly from the winery. I bet the price today is probably close to double, but I was a buyer about 20 years ago before buying into real Madeira. You gotta start somewhere and although Stewart brought me a bottle a couple of years ago, the quality has always been top notch and remains one of the best dessert wines I have ever tasted from the USA. There are a handful of others, but the V. Sattui is amongst them for sure. Knowing Glenn E.'s palate, I bet this would be right up his alley and capture his sweet spot. I also think Peter Meek would like this a lot too!

Personally, I'm a fan of Roxo in Paso Robles. Some very intersting wines made form both traditional Portuguese and other grapes (in cluding Barbera and Bordeux varietals). My favorite from them is their Negrette. All of these are VP or LBV in style.
-Dave-

David,

As you know, I liked the ROXO too. I have some port-style wines here from CA and OR that I am looking forward to try over the next month. So many ports, so little time. The most consistent producer of port-style wines that I've had, have come from Ficklin. But that doesn't necessarily translate into the best, although they are always darn good. I've had many from So. Africa earlier in the decade that I found were excellent too.

I like zinfandel port, but have not had one in awhile. My favorites have been from Oregon, they have a black-pepper-spiciness that i like. Peter Rosback used to make some good ones as a home winemaker before he started up Sineann. McMenamin's Edgefield in Portland makes a zin port called "Fireside" that is really good.

Some days ago I had the opportunity to meet Jeff Steele - owner and winemaker of Roxo port Cellars. I was deeply impressed with both him and his wife passion about Port and how happy they were for visiting the Douro and Porto. Jeff was so kind that he actually offered me 2 half bottles of his Ruby Tradicional Vintage 2006 - Método Tradicional - TN, TF, Tinta Roriz and 5%! Bastardo - we opened one and it was an amazing exercise to taste it blind side by side with some Vintage Ports. I was impressed with the freshness and the intensity of the fresh primary summer fruits, although for a 06 it did not had the level of extraction and structure that I would expect in comparison with a 06 Vintage Port - treading is absolutely fundamental - A shy nose of heather and black fruit were in lovely balance with dark spices. Nimble and elegant on the palate, quite delicate with its medium weight and medium/high sweetness, but as the finish stretches out, the lasting impression is of how juicy the wine is - also a bit lighter than the "real" Vintage Ports, but that shouldn't imply that it lacks structure; rather, the dryness was less prominent than any overt sweetness.

Anyway, the most important thing was the tremendous time we all had and now Paso Robles is surely in my top list when I visit CA.

By the way, I will take the opportunity to send some warm greetings from Jeff and his wife to David Spriggs and Roy

Thanks Gustavo. It was a lot of fun tasting and providing tasting notes on Jeff's ports a couple of months ago. Very solid and someday it would be nice to meet them and taste more of their Roxo lineup. In the current newsletter, there were a few TNs on some Zin ports by Parker Family Vineyards which also make solid port here in the USA. I am always open to trying these new wines and giving them honest feedback and I don't try to compare them to real Port, but just evaluate them based on their own merits.

I guess I'll just jump in here and show my ignorance on the subject But....I haven't heard anyone mention Galway Pipe Port from down under Australia. It's a fine Tawny Port style, and stands up well against several "Good" Ports I've had taste tests with. However, what do I know.

Larry

Actually, the Galway Pipe is a good contender!

I cut my teeth on Australian fortifieds before graduating to the Portugese port. There are plenty of Tawny styles available in the Australian market but on the whole I'm not a huge fan of most. The wine that originally got me interested in fortifieds is a vintage port style from a winery called Stanton & Killeen from Rutherglen about 3 1/2 hours north of Melbourne. The winemaker (the late Chris Killeen) was a big fan of port and had gradually incorporated portuguese grape varieties into the blend with the more usual shiraz and durif. They make a very fine muscat as well.
I recently dined at one of the better restaurants in Melbourne where the wines were matched to a degustation menu. A french fortified called Mas Amiel from 2008 ( I believe it is a grenache) was served with an unusal course that involved beetroot and berries and marked the transition from mains to desert. That was an eye opener for me as a) I didn't realise the French did fortifieds and b) the match of the dish to the wine was wonderful and brought out the best in both!

I love the Australian Rutherglen fortifieds as well; but to me, they're more like Setubal than Port. I don't drink nearly enough Setubal nor Rutherglen wines.

They make a bit of everything in Rutherglen, but their point of difference is the muscat and tokay/topaque so there is an export market for that
I doubt a lot of anything else makes it outside of Australia these days but several of the rutherglen wineries go back to the mid to late 1800s so they were making all the styles the the English migrants liked to drink at the time.
I'll admit that I'd not heard of Setubal, but after a bit of googling, I've got the impression that it is similar to tokay here