Saturday, January 16th, 2010
NV Warre’s ‘Warrior’ Special Reserve Ruby Port, Douro, Portugal (283RMB)
Available from Aussino (www.aussino.net). Contact: Joe Ma 13810465433, Email: joema@aussino.net
Founded in 1670, Warre’s was the first British-owned Port house and is now operated by The Symington Family. As a Reserve Ruby, this wine is from grapes of higher quality than normal Ruby Port - see this month’s Tips and Tricks for more information - and is aged for longer before release.
Dark purple in colour, the nose has lovely crushed black fruits and sweet spice aromas. A powerful palate with intense fruit, high tannins, vibrant acidity balancing the high sugar here, this wine has good length and is one of the best Reserve Ruby Ports.
2003 Graham’s Late Bottled Vintage Port, Douro, Portugal (306RMB)
Available from Torres China (www.torreschina.com). Contact: Jenny Zhang, Email: jenny@torres.com.cn
Graham’s, like Warre’s, is also part of The Symington Family estates. This wine is from the amazing 2003 vintage. As a Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) wine (see this month’s Tips and Tricks on Port styles), it can be drunk earlier than other Vintage Ports.
Very dark purple in colour, the nose has gorgeous concentrated black fruits and sweet and savoury spices. The palate is immensely rich with integrated sugar, high acidity, very ripe high tannins and excellent length.
This wine represents good value (in the Chinese market) and can easily last for a week after opening without spoiling.
Friday, January 15th, 2010
Port: The Basics
The perfect drink for winter - or if, like us, you’re mad about fortifieds for any time of year - Port can be enjoyed by itself by the fire or with a wide range of cheeses, chocolate and desserts.
Ports are part of a family of ‘fortified wines’, so called because alcohol has been added to them, in this case during fermentation, so the resulting wine is deliciously sweet balanced with vibrant acidity.
The key to buying Port is to understand the two basic types on offer: those aged in wood and those aged in bottle.
The first type (‘wood-aged’) are know as Tawny Ports. During their maturation period, they are exposed to a lot of oxygen, so they change colour (from bright purple to a mellow brown-red, tawny colour) and develop delicious nutty flavours which also include caramel, coffee and spice aromas.
Tawnies are more mellow and less tannic than the bottle-aged Ports and pair excellently with cheeses of all types as well as being a perfect after-dinner drink. There are a few quality levels for Tawnies ranging from the basic Tawny to ones with indication of age, such as 10 year old, 20 year old. Of course, the older… the more expensive!
The main problem in China is that many of the Tawny Ports on offer are far too expensive by international standards (if you want better value, look for Reserve Ruby or LBV Ports - as explained below. See also this month’s Wine Picks).
Bottle-aged Ports include what we think of as classic Port, purple in colour, with strong black fruit flavours, spice and lots of flavour and structure.
The basic level, Ruby Port, is young, fruity, noticeably alcoholic and not of great quality. But it’s worth looking for Reserve Ruby which is made from better quality grapes and has a minimum ageing requirement.
Vintage Ports are the best of the best, only made in certain years, but require 20+years of ageing for ideal drinking- which needs lots of patience!! A good compromise is the categroy of Late Bottled Vintage. The winemaker delays the bottling of these vintage wines so that (with oxygen contact) they mature faster and are ready to drink on release without decades of ageing.
All these bottle-aged Ports are the perfect choice to pair with chocolate and chocolate-based desserts which are otherwise very hard on wine. Other types of Port exist but are relatively rare and generally hard to find in the PRC.
