La Vino Dolce

Not too long ago, I wrote an article explaining the differences between Late Bottled Vintage Ports and other styles of Port. I made a couple of claims in that article that I wanted to follow up on.

- LBV Ports without a traditional cork don’t age well -

A couple of my friends who read this blog questioned me when I claimed that LBV Ports with a cork stopper, as opposed to a traditional cork, don’t age well. Most people are under the impression that just about any type of port can be aged. The fact is, I stand by my assertion that, unless your port has a traditional cork, it will not age. To test my theory, I decided to consume the oldest bottle of LBV I could find.

Needless to say, this bottle of Sandeman’s 1989 Late Bottled Vintage Port was not good. It had absolutely no fruit left and was nothing but alcohol on the palette. I suppose if you were desperate you could probably have choked it down, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Read the rest of this entry »

Try this word association exercise with a friend and see what happens. Tell them to say the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the following phrase:

Dessert wine.

I am willing to bet nine out of ten people respond with one word:

Port.

The fact is, most people who have any exposure to wine are familiar with “Port” and have probably tried it at some point. That being said, very few people are “experts” when it comes to Port, and for good reason. There’s Tawny Port, Colheita Port, Crusted Port, and Vintage Port, among others, which all serve to make understanding Port difficult for anyone but the most interested aficionados. While I am planning a more in-depth look at Port as a whole, I want to delve into one peculiarity of Port wine production: Late Bottled Vintage Port, also known as LBV. I decided to tackle LBV first because I recently had one of the most sublime wine-tasting experiences of my life involving the Warre’s 1984 “Traditional” LBV pictured above, but more on that later… Read the rest of this entry »