One of life’s great pleasures is enjoying a great meal. A great meal with wine pairings is like an opera. There is an overture or appetizer. It gives you an insight to what is coming. It lets you hear a few notes that will enlighten your senses. A good wine pairing and an appetizer should start your tastebuds dancing. The French term amuse bouche translates to entertain your mouth.
The next course sets the tone for opera. It is the direction that the chef or conductor will take you on, or the journey of the meal. Is a midnight ride on the orient express of an Asian style soup with a terrific Riesling from the Mosel? Or an earthy beet salad with a crisp rosè from the Provence? Just let the notes of the musicians pour over your pallet. Drink in the food note by note.
As the song grows in intensity, you feel the urge, the clawing of anticipation for the main course. Will it be the call of a soprano lilting sweet notes with sea bass and a lovely Chardonnay or the deep tone of a baritone shaking the walls like a fine piece of roasted prime rib of beef and a well aged Bordeaux?
Now that you have enjoyed the courses and beverages, your mind will wander. Is this over, is the music done? No, there is the crescendo. You wait for it because you know it is how the show is supposed to conclude, but you hope it does not disappoint.
As you get to the end of the meal, you are often presented with a sweet end, a crescendo in the form of dessert. So how does all of this help make the end leave you humming the songs you heard? Begging for more? The answer is port.
Port is a fortified wine from Portugal and generally from red wine grapes and usually sweet. Port is available as either a vintage wine or a blend of wines from multiple vintages. It is has a very broad range of types and styles.
Port pairs exceedingly well with everything from blue cheese to flourless chocolate cake and dried stone fruit. There is a stereotype of middle aged men in a room with dark wood walls in front of a crackling fire smoking big cigars and drinking port, but it is much more versatile than that. Before we hear the “fat lady sing” at our opera, let’s take a closer look at port wine.
Like many wines, port has a wide variation in quality and price. Ignoring the supermarket swill, the entry point is ruby port. It is a blend of wines and meant to be consumed right away. It tends to have enough residual sugar to be pleasing without being over sweet. A reserve or late bottled vintage are a bit further aged than ruby and the better ports of this type will age for a generation or more.
A second option is tawny port. Tawny ports are aged a minimum of two years before bottling and have a milder flavor. Think of ruby ports as having a flavor profile of blackberry, cinnamon or dark chocolate. Tawny port is more caramel, fig and hazelnut. Both ruby and tawny port have some of the same grapes, it is the color, flavors and blending that make them different.
The third port to consider are the vintage and blended vintage ports. The vintage ports generally cover every calendar year and if you have the access and the budget, there is no better milestone birthday gift for a wine lover, than a bottle of vintage port from ones birth year.
The blended vintage port are generally 10, 20 and 30 year. These are ports where the wines come from more than one year and are blended together and aged for the years on the label. Depending on the port producer, these can go out 50 or more years. Bottles of port from the 1800’s routinely show up in wine auctions to this day. Since the fortified wine making process includes heating the wine to concentrate the sugars, these wines, unopened, can last over 100 years.
So if you want to end your food opera on a high note, here’s a few tips. First how to serve port is as crucial as any question. In a small port glass, not a snifter is a must. A proper pour is 1.5 to 2 ounces per person. Lastly, ruby port should be 55-60 degrees, tawny port should be served at 50-55 degrees and vintage port 40-50 degrees.
Port is a versitle singer in the opera and pairs well with a number of food choices. A few of my favorite options truly are a world tour. If you are feeling European, pair your port with a cheese course. Most Ports will perform well with a mix of soft, blue and sheep or goat cheese.
If you are looking for a pairing that supports a more traditional dessert, port wine and chocolate, sing in the same key. A flourless chocolate cake or chocolate mousse will bring your dinners to a glorious end and should earn you shouts of “bravo” and maybe even a standing ovation!
One last option is simply some seasonal fruits. Pears, fresh figs and apricots will pair exceeding well with the different port options. Be careful to choose your port than your dessert; after all port is the star here and should not be upstaged by a prima donna dessert.
The final few notes on this opera is how to choose and store a port. If you think of ruby and tawny as entry points and reserve, vintage and multiple vintage as more advanced options, you will be well suited. Many dinners will be reluctant to share your port fascination because of perception or bad prior experience with port. If you remember proper glassware, temperatures and serving size you will make them raving fans.
Lastly, port is not like brandy or cognac in that it won’t stay fresh and delightful for long periods of time after it has been opened. Port will last up to four weeks after opening if well corked and stored in a cool dark place like the rear portion of your refrigerator. Port comes in so many different sizes, so buy and open what you can consume in this timeframe.
Port wine is a great way to finish your meal. It is able to be a fine accompanyment to your operatic dinning and wine pairing achievement; but be careful because it just might steal the show!
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say superb blog!