This Week's Tasting
Ports After The Storm - Warming from the Inside
January 28, 2026
Centuries before central heating, the English employed rich, warming Port to fight winter's chill. Today this fortified wine is just as effective and even more delicious than before.
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This Week Wednesday, January 28, 2026 Ports After The Storm Warming from the Inside In-Store, 5 - 6:30pm
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Centuries before central heating, the English employed rich, warming Port to fight winter's chill. Today this fortified wine is just as effective and even more delicious than before. Whether as aperitif or after dinner it can adorn a meal. You can taste the gamut of port styles how and why this week. They are wines for this season.
Two of Port's many good qualities.
1. A little goes a long way . Brandy added prior to the end of fermentation makes the wine stronger and leaves some sugar which makes it luscious. You don’t need or want as much as you would want wine.
2. It stays good (and sometimes improves) for weeks after opening. If you can't make it to the tasting, drop in any time in the next week for any remaining.
We’ll try Port’s two main traditional styles.
Ruby Ports spend less time in wooden barrel , usually two to no more that five years. They keep their red color and succulent berry plum flavors. They
The basic ports are usually labeled ruby or Reserve .Late Bottle Vintage (LBV ) Ports are a reserve level that come from a single vintage, aged usually for five years or so in wood. Red ports famously pair well with stilton cheese and apples or other hard fruits. And are lovely with chocolate
Port’s pinnacle is Vintage, which Port Houses and estates make from their best wine in only in the three or so vintages of a decade that they consider the best They need at least a decade for their powerful tannins and alcohol to marry needs long aging to soften its tannins. They can live a long time . The best only start their best drinking at 25 and can live 30 to 50 years. In 2002 I loved a memorable Warre from the great 1900 vintage
The barrels in which Tawny Ports are aged lighten its color and mellow its fruit. They present themselves as lighter (although they are not), perhaps a bit drier, with more the flavor of figs and nuts that they acquire from the oxygen-rich time they spend in wood. They are labelled as tawny, or with the 10, 20, 30 or 40 years that is the average time the wines in their blend have spent in barrel. They are for aperitif or after dinner with cookies or cakes.
Banyuls
Toward the end of the last century, Dr. Andre Parce was famous for reviving the quality of fortified sweet wine from France’s Banyuls in the very south of Roussillon. On meeting him in 1989, I asked how Banyuls compared to Port. 'Port," he replied, "is an Atlantic wine. Then with a broad sweep of the hand, a very gallic flourish, “My Banyuls is of Mediterranean.”
He meant more than geography. Sunnier, softer Banyuls has none of Port's rigor and structure. Grenache-based, it is an even better match for chocolate than Port. Valentine's Day is coming, after all. His grandson’s wine is only sporadically available, so we will open Chapoutier’s very good version.
We will taste some of the classics, but also a couple of estates that overdeliver for their prices
Port Plus One
Tawny
Quinta do Infantado Tawny; Aroma: Light very dry nutty chewy light caramel toffee; Mouth: Medium sweet dry heady very balanced & integrated ; Very Good Plus $19.99; Case, $16.99
Pocas 10 Year Tawny ; Aroma: dried fruit, light wood note, raisiny; Mouth: full and rounded a delicate complexity dried plum, ; Very Good Plus $29.95; Case, $25.95
Fonseca 20 year Tawny; Color: Light red brown; Aroma: Light clean firm full very structured; Mouth: Light rounder sweeter fruit clean very intense sweet lightlly full rich; ∫ˆ $75; Case, $63.75
Ruby
2012 Chapoutier Banyuls; Color: Very dark very dense purple; Aroma: Heady sweet soft very plummy rich; Mouth: Very sweet ripe acid clean spicy vinous pretty sweet acid long primary; Very Good Plus 500 ml bottle$36; Case, $30.6
Quinta do Infantado Ruby; Aroma: sweet and rich; Mouth: Medium sweet heady rounded and plummy; Very Good Plus $19.99; Case, $16.99
2019 Taylor LBV; Color: medium dark; Aroma: light reserved, clean, pretty r, forward; Mouth: juicy very intense rather strong, fine acid, forward heady and rich; Very Good Plus $29.95; Case, $25.46
2017 Quinta do infantado Vintage To be tasted for the first time Full Bottle $72, case 62
.Half Bottle $35 Case $29.95
Mix any 6 or more at their case prices
At the tasting, get any bottle at its discounted case price.
Order by phone at 617.367.8605, or reserve here: order@federalwine.com
Please pass this on to any friends who are wine enthusiasts!
- Len Rothenberg
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