Category Archives: Port & Sherry

Tasting Report: Madeira Wine 2010

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

To call Madeira poorly understood would be charitable. This truly ancient fortified wine from an eponymous island off the coast of (and part of) Portugal dates back to the 1400s and comes in infinite varieties. Sadly, the only one most drinkers are likely to have ever encountered is the cheap bottle carried by the local grocery store, rarely used for anything more than the occasional recipe.

Madeira grew to popularity after it was fortified and shipped to the New World during the 1500s, the heat and motion from the journey transforming a rough beverage into something different and special. Though modern Madeira is no longer shipped around the world, it is still kept warm during the aging process (called estufagem) in order to simulate the voyage.

Very little Madeira is single-vintage in origin, and even those wines with a year on the label may not be entirely from that vintage. Legally, only 85% of the grapes in a bottle have to come from that year’s harvest. Instead, you’ll find a wide variety of places, production styles, and other descriptors cluttering up the typical Madeira label.

The taste of Madeira is difficult to describe, something of a bastard child of Port and Sherry, featuring as many variations as those two wines comprise. Quality is even more wildly variable, as my tasting notes from a recent gathering of Madeira producers will surely indicate. (Grab that 1922 D’Oliveira if you can, a mere $460 a bottle!)

Tasting Report – Madeira Wine 2010

NV Blandy’s Sercial 10 Years Old / C+ / a bit skunky

1968 Blandy’s Vintage Bual / B / unthrilling

1997 Cossart Gordon Harvest Bual / B- / unripe

NV Henriques & Henriques Finest Full Rich 5 Years Old / C+ / thick, angry

NV Henriques & Henriques 10 Years Old Malmsey / B+ / richer, with more fruit and nutmeg

NV Henriques & Henriques 15 Years Old Boal / B- / over sweet to the point of cloying

NV Broadbent Fine Rich 5 Years Old / A- / Port-like with a bright sweetness, best young Madeira of the tasting

NV Broadbent Malmsey 10 Years Old / B+ / too tart, minerally and powerful

1998 Justinos Madeira Fine Rich Colheita / A- / quite lovely, with a good body and a raisiny fruitiness

1969 D’Oliveira Reserve Sercial / C- / odd, golden color, wholly off in tone

1988 D’Oliveira Harvest Terrantez / C

1973 D’Oliveira Reserve Verdelho / B+ / better balance

1989 D’Oliveira Harvest Malmsey / B+ / still fruity and lush

1968 D’Oliveira Reserve Boal / B+ / solid flavor, deep gold color

1922 D’Oliveira Reserve Boal / A / best Madeira of event (and almost 90 years old); amazingly rich, huge, silky sweet body

NV Barbeito Historic Series Sercial Charleston Special Reserve / B

1988 Barbeito Sercial Fraqueira / B- / rough hewn

NV Barbeito VB Reserve Lote 2 Casks 12d & 46a / A / blend of 2 regions, well balanced and special

2001 Barbeito Boal Casks 48 & 84 / A- / very Port like, despite gold color

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Reviews, Wine

Tasting Report: Wines of Portugal 2010

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Christopher Null| 1 Comment

Portuguese table wines are always a mixed bag, with rough-hewn whites and a wild variety of reds to contend with. This year’s Portugal grand tasting event was familiar (see 2008′s event report here), with lesser-known Port vendors vying for attention among makers of vinho verde and other wines amongst a crowded group of wine enthusiasts muscling their way around the room.

This year I found a soft spot in my heart for aragones, a variety of grenache grown here and in Spain, which produced some much more complicated wines than Portugal is typically known for. Several producers had good aragoneses (aragoni?) on tap, with some equally compelling wines made from touriga nacional grapes — a grape usually used to make Port. Would love to experience top producer Esporao’s wines again.

Ratings and a few notes on tasted wines (and one brandy) follow.

Wines of Portugal 2010 Complete Report

2008 Casa de Santar Reserva DOC Dao / A- / pineapple-like, charming

2009 Grilos DOC Dao / B+ / perfumy white

2008 Palestra DOC Douro / B+ / thin red

2005 Dona Maria Amantis VR Alentejano / B / coffee notes

2005 Dona Maria Reserva VR Alentejano / B / tight

2007 CARM Reserva DOC Douro / B / tight, vegetal

2008 Carmim Aragones VR Alentejano / A- / licorice, leather notes

2007 Charamba DOC Douro / B- / an oddity, like children’s juice

2008 Esporao Reserva White DOC Alentejo / B+ / perfumed

2007 Esporao Reserva Red DOC Alentejo / B / herbal

2007 Esporao Aragones VR Alentejano / A / great balance, 100% aragones grapes

2007 Esporao Touriga Nacional VR Alentejano / A- / deep, dark chocolate and menthol character

NV Krohn Porto 20 Year Old DOC Porto / A- / woody and good tawny character

NV Krohn Porto 30 Year Old DOC Porto / A / a slight improvement

1968 Krohn Colheita DOC Porto / B+ / somewhat medicinal

1998 Krohn Colheita DOC Porto / B+ / dusty but lighter in style

NV Ferreira Dona Antonia Reserve Tawny Porto DOC Porto / B / 3.5 years aged, simplistic

NV Ferreira Duque de Braganca 20 Years Old Tawny Porto / B+ / vanilla character

NV Ferreira Quinta do Borto 10 Years Old Tawny / B+ / Cognac notes

2000 Ferreira Late Bottled Vintage Porto / B+ / fresh

2007 Ferreira Vintage Porto / B- / very fruity, jellybean like

NV Sandeman 30 Years Old Tawny Porto / A- / nutty with cocoa notes

2007 Sandeman Vintage Porto / B / not near ready for drinking

2000 Quinta do Pego Porto Vintage / B+ / oddly tannic

2007 Quinta do Pego Porto Vintage / B+ / easygoing

2007 Cartuxa DOC Alentejo / A- / very curious, fresh figs and cherry

2006 Cartuxa Reserva DOC Alentejo / A- / more balanced, like the standard bottling

NV Caldas Porto Fine White / A- / nutty with fig notes

2004 Quinta da Gaivosa Late Bottled Vintage Porto / A- / nice balance here

NV Quinta Tamariz VSOP Brandy DOC Vinho Verde / B- / harsh

2008 Patrimonio DOC Torres Vedras / A- / thinner, lighter style

2008 Casa Santos Lima LX VR Lisboa / B- / fruity finish but rough

2005 Brutalis VR Estremadura / B+ / not so brutal

2005 Dona Belmire Beiras VR Beiras / B

1994 Barros Colheita DOC Porto / B / green

1989 Burmester Colheita DOC Porto / B+

1989 Kopke Colheita DOC Porto / A- / good, mellow and muted

1975 Barros Colheita DOC Porto / B

2000 Calem Vintage Porto / B+ / feels young

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Reviews, Wine

Review: Sandeman Tawny Port 20 Years Old

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

A good, old 20 year old tawny port with a ruddy brick-red color, Sandeman’s affordable porto is an easy and accessible entry to the style. Port’s traditional raisin and prune characteristics are present, but they are considerably muted beneath wood notes, smoke, and some vegetal character — all at the expense of some of tawny’s traditional sugariness. It isn’t quite as ultimately harmonious as I might have liked, but for those looking for something a bit less sweet in an after-dinner wine, this one might do the trick. 20% alcohol by volume.

B+ / $45 / sandeman.eu

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Rated B+, Reviews, Wine

Review: Three Old Williams & Humbert Rare Sherries

Posted on June 21, 2009 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

I’ve said before that I am not much of a sherry drinker, but seriously, Harvey’s Bristol Cream is about the only sherry that America knows: You even see it on the dessert wine list at some of the finest restaurants… despite the fact that you can nab a bottle for about 12 bucks.

Following up its 15-year Dry Sack Oloroso, Williams & Humbert offers these three new sherry bottlings, all well-aged and intriguing, and each quite different.

Don Guido Rare Old Sweet Solera Especial Pedro Ximenez, aged 20 years, is as thick and dark as black coffee. Nutty on the nose, it’s intensely raisiny on the palate and could easily pass for an old tawny Port. Not a lot of complexity here, to be honest. It’s a solid punch of raisin character sprinkled with wood notes, but a little cloying in its sweetness. (Not that I should be surprised — it says so right on the label.) 18% alcohol. B / $50

Dos Cortados Rare Old Palo Cortado Especial, aged 20 years, is frankly not my kind of sherry. Burnt golden in color, it has a promising and young nose, fragrant with wood and vanilla and raisiny Port-like character. But the body is nothing at all like that, surprisingly astringent and quite rustic, with a very dry, vegetal character. Hard to get past a few sips of this one. Maybe more up your alley if you’re into drier dessert wines; the company intriguingly suggests using it as a cocktail ingredient. 19.5% alcohol. C- / $50

Jalifa Rare Old Amontillado Solera Especial, aged 30 years, is the age king of this roundup, and it shares a lot of its DNA with the Dos Cortados. The color is similar to the Dos Cortados, but with a comparably muted nose, the lightest of this roundup. Again, this sherry is extremely dry, with a nutty body but a lingering acidity that borders on medicinal. Built for fans of the dry dessert stuff. 20.5% alcohol. C / $70

williams-humbert.com

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Rated B, Rated C, Rated C-, Reviews, Wine

Review: Dry Sack Oloroso 15 Years Old Solera Especial

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Christopher Null| 1 Comment

One reader recently asked why we don’t review much sherry around here, and the answer is simple: They don’t send us much sherry to review, and in fact they don’t sell much of it in the U.S. at all.

In fact, Williams & Humbert’s Dry Sack 15-year Oloroso is the first sherry we’ve formally reviewed here, and it’s a doozy. This is actually a blend of two sherries, a dry oloroso (78%) and Pedro Jimenez (22%), each blended separately with the solera style (in which wines are aged in a series of casks, with a portion of wine from each cask is progressively moved into the next-oldest cask every year until a tiny bit is finally drawn off the oldest cask and bottled, in this case after a total of 15 years through the process).

The result is a cryptic wine, dark oak in color and 20.5 percent alcohol. The nose is filled with raisins, but a nutty character becomes quite palpable as the raisin-like sweetness fades. The finish is spicy, with allspice and mulled wine; you get a whiff of these in the nose, too.

Dry Sack Oloroso 15 has a somewhat short finish, surprising considering the pedigree of what’s in the bottle, but that isn’t a major detraction from a wine that, at about $25 a bottle, is impressively inexpensive.

B+ / $25 / williams-humbert.com

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Rated B+, Reviews, Wine

Tasting Report: 2007 Vintage Port

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Christopher Null| 2 Comments

For the first time since 2003, Portugal has declared a vintage Port year: 2007, which was characterized by relatively cool weather, followed by some heat near harvest time, just enough (they say) to ripen the grapes.

I had the chance to sample the 2007 vintage from 12 different producers this week (total production of all of these wines together equals a scant 65,000 cases) — and while I’m not prepared to say, as some might have you believe, that this is “the best vintage of all time” (a phrase one hears a lot when dealing with winemakers no matter what year it is), it’s certainly a solid year that will offer wines with plenty of longevity and diversity.

Styles were quite different from producer to producer, and I couldn’t pinpoint anything specific that might define 2007 uniquely. Best bottles were poured by Graham, Taylor Fladgate, and Dow, but if I had to pick a favorite, I’d give the slight edge to Fonseca’s immense and flavorful Vintage Port.

Also on hand were a sampling of older ports dating back to the 1970s, and its here where some of the event’s most amazing treasures were found. Specifically: Dow’s 1980 Vintage Port, just perfect for drinking right now with a wonderful balance of fruit and alcohol, earth and sun, and definitely a good deal for $110 if you can find bottles still laying about.

2007, as it was explained to me at the show, also marks an interesting legal change for Port producers: Previously they were forced to buy the brandy used in the production of the wine from the Portuguese government. (For the novice: 15 to 20 percent of a bottle of Port is actually brandy, which is used to arrest the fermentation process midstream by killing the yeast with alcohol and leaving the sugar in the wine, which is why Port has that characteristic sweetness.) The new rules let Port makers use a higher quality of brandy that’s not sold by the feds — which should lead to better quality wines, and more divergent styles.

Complete notes and ratings follow.

2007 Vintage Port

2007 Croft / B+ / heady and herbal
2007 Dow / A- / very dry in style, easier-drinking than most
2007 Fonseca / A / really packed with fruit; this one has great longevity
2007 Graham / A- / flowery, easygoing. moderate sweetness
2007 Noval / B / spicy and racy
2007 Quinta da Romaneira / B- / too woody, some astringency
2007 Silval / B+
2007 Smith Woodhouse / B+ / very traditional, raisin notes
2007 Taylor Fladgate / A- / solid, well-behaved and balanced
2007 Vargellas Vinha Velha / B+ / cocoa-infused, lighter in style
2007 Vesuvio / B+ / rich, generally fair
2007 Warre / B+

Older Vintages Sampled

1980 Dow / A+ / just about a perfect Port, ready to drink right now, gorgeous and rich, but not overpowering
1985 Fonseca / A- / definitely ready for 20 more years in the bottle, full of strong cherry notes
1970 Graham / A- / quite pale and light, fading
1977 Smith Woodhouse / B+ / fading, some off green notes
1977 Taylor Fladgate / A- / well-aged, though filled with sediment
1983 Warre / B+ / heavily alcoholic, dry and light

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Reviews, Wine

Review: Warre’s Otima 10 Year and 20 Year Tawny Port

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

Eschewing traditional design — those white-stenciled bottles look cool but they’re certainly not “modern” — for a more contemporary approach, Warre’s Otima line aims to “change the perception of Port” through new packaging. What’s inside the bottles is different too, a tawny Port with a lighter structure that Warre positions as good for drinking any time, not just after ingesting 20 ounces of prime rib. (Warre’s even suggests drinking them chilled!)

Here’s how the two Otima bottlings — both sold in sleek 500ml decanters — stack up.

Warre’s Otima 10 Year Tawny Port – Really light in color; to the casual eye you’d might think it was table wine, not Port. The taste is, for the most part, classic tawny, with a strong cherry kick and a moderate finish. Certainly lighter in body than many tawnies I’ve tried, but not overwhelmingly so. Not sure I’d drink it before dinner, but it does make for a nice digestif. A- / $22 (500ml)

Warre’s Otima 20 Year Tawny Port – Color is noticeably darker here but still not too deep. Much more tart and slightly sweeter than the 10 Year, almost like the 10′s sweet cherries have turned sour. Drinkable, but actually not as outright pleasant as its younger brother. B / $35 (500ml)

warre.com/otima

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Rated A-, Rated B, Reviews, Wine

Review: Charbay Pomegranate Dessert Wine

Posted on April 2, 2009 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

Yes, pomegranate rage has now reached all the way to the wine world, with Charbay knocking out this non-vintage, pomegranate-based dessert wine (the company makes two other pomegranate products already), ready to give your digestive system a kick in the glands.

Charbay starts with 100% organic pomegranates, ferments them, then arrests that fermentation when there’s sugar still present by adding Charbay’s own Pinot Noir Brandy. The final concoction is 18.7% alcohol, in line with most traditional, grape-based Ports.

Though the nose doesn’t let on — it’s more Port-like than you’d think — the flavor is something else: Starting soft, then quickly becoming extremely sweet as if hits the back of the mouth. Much like drinking 100% pomegranate juice, it then becomes very tart, puckering the mouth into an O.

It’s not bad, per se, but it’s just not the way I like to enjoy dessert wine (with less fruit and sourness) nor the way I like to enjoy pomegranate juice. But I think the company, and the wine’s numerous fans, have the right idea on how best to consume it: Boil this down into a reduction and put it on everything from pork chops to ice cream.

C / $38 / charbay.com

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Rated C, Reviews, Wine

Review: Inniskillin Ice Wines

Posted on November 26, 2008 by Christopher Null| Leave a comment

Rarely have dessert wines vanished from Drinkhacker HQ so quickly as Inniskillin’s Ice Wines (or Icewines). Traditionally made icewine from Canada, these high-alcohol, high-sugar, high-addiction-level wines vanished in days.

Icewine is a very sweet and flavorful wine made from grapes that are left on the vine until winter’s frost arrives, freezing the grapes only after temperatures hit -8 Celsius and stay there for some time. The frozen, ultra-ripe grapes are harvested and fermented, leaving a preciously small amount of actual wine from the harvest: Pound for pound, you get less than 15% the amount of wine from frozen grapes as you do from regularly harvested ones. The sweetness is tricky: You may think you’re drinking a heavily fortified wine like port, but these wines land at between 9 and 11.5% alcohol, considerably less than most table wines.

Icewine can be made from a variety of grape varietals, and I tried a number of them for this review. All come in 375ml half bottles (prices listed are also for 375ml versions) and are designed to be served very cold (which makes sense). These wines come from the Niagara Pennisula in Ontario.

2007 Inniskillin Riesling – A classic dessert wine, very fresh and crisp, with flavors of apricot, peach, and flowers. As with many icewines, it’s the honey that keeps you coming back, and this Riesling is perhaps the most easy-drinking of all the icewines I tried. Very refreshing, this is an awfully hard bottle to put down. 9% alcohol. A / $85

2007 Inniskillin Cabernet Franc – This traditionally hearty and rough red grape makes for an icewine that is, surprisingly, very similar in flavor to the Riesling, with that same super-sweet fruitiness but tricked out with red berry notes. Cabernet Franc — who knew you could turn it into something like this!? Those strawberry/raspberry characteristics are interesting, but I found myself longing more for the crisp simplicity of the Riesling. 9.5% alcohol. B+ / $100

2005 Inniskillin Sparkling Vidal – Another spin on this theme, the Vidal grape (hugely popular for icewine) traps the naturally-occurring carbon dioxide that comes with fermentation and bottles it up, Champagne style. It’s very alarming to smell and taste such amazing sweetness alongside effervescence like this, but it grows on you. The carbonation is pretty mild, and it fades away after less than an hour in the glass, leaving a straightforward honey, apple, and flowery finish. 11.5% alcohol. A- / $75

inniskillin.com

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Posted in Port & Sherry, Rated A, Rated A-, Rated B+, Reviews, Wine

Review: Smith Woodhouse Lodge Reserve Port

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Christopher Null| 1 Comment

Smith Woodhouse isn’t the biggest name in Port, but the company’s Lodge Reserve Port is a winner in the nonvintage world.

This is a rich and vibrant ruby Port, full of fruit and jam flavors. The finish is impressively long. It stays with you in the back of your mouth for minutes, fading from sugary jam to muted wood notes. No, you don’t get those intense sherry and caramel notes that you get with an aged, vintage port. This is more of a straightforward currant/raisin affair with an intensely purple color. But for a mere $18, you really can’t go wrong with this one.

B+ / $18 / smithwoodhouse.com