The Tasting Panel magazine

May 2012

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DEPARTMENT HEADER port. I hadn't put this on the list, but I sold them each a glass. They loved it so much they each ordered another glass." Indeed, although vintage ports and single-quinta vintages (a vintage port from just one quinta or vineyard, similar to a single-estate vintage wine) can age in bottles for decades, once opened their lifespans are dramatically shortened to 24 hours—which trans- lates into a maximum of two nights behind the bar—assuming techniques such as argon gas or a vacuum pump are used to keep these fragile wines from oxidizing. LBVs, tawnies and vintage character or proprietary ruby ports such as Graham's Six Grapes, Cockburn's Special Reserve, Fonseca Bin No. 27, and Sandeman's Founder's Reserve are much more forgiving, and can be kept up to three weeks after opening, again assuming they are sealed each night to keep air out. "One way I'm able to keep a variety of different port styles on the menu is to utilize them in our three, five, or nine port and wine pairings, where it's basi- cally my choice as to what wines go with Portly Pairings youthful encounters with their moth- er's cooking wines. These prejudices are difficult for sommeliers and off-premise sales people to overcome, and aren't helped by the fact some menus still refer to ports as "stickies." To help dispel these misconceptions, Noah Dranow, Lead Sommelier at Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak in San Francisco, offers his customers these simple but effective descriptions of the two basic port categories: "I start out by telling guests that a tawny port is a wine that spends most of its life in a barrel and is bottled when it's ready to drink. It has caramelized, 126 / the tasting panel / may 2012 nutty, and dried fruit notes," he says. "Rubies, on the other hand, spend most of their lives in the bottle, are primary in fruit characteristics and tend to have a bit more structure. I currently have three ports I pour by the glass, a Taylor's 20 Year Old Tawny, a 2005 Quinta do Crasto LBV that Mishi Grogan from Epic Wines brought to my attention and a 1985 Dow's. I also have a handful of older vintages that I sell by the bottle. Normally a bottle of vintage port only makes sense for a larger party, but I had this '85 Dow's opened one evening when three gentlemen came in and asked me about vintage Pairing port with food at Michael Mina's Bourbon Steak in San Francisco, the author matched a Dow's 1985 Vintage with Chef Omri Aflalo's succulent Bone Marrow Custard. The creamy richness of the baked bone marrow dovetailed perfectly with the '85 Dow's thick carpet of blackberries, cherries, and chocolate.

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