FIGHT THE WINTER BLUES WITH DELICIOUS DIGESTIFS
Warm and wonderful super sippers take sting out of the cold when you need it most
With the depth of winter here, sometimes it gets hard to even leave the house.
But really, who needs to leave? Between shopping on Amazon (even if they aren’t setting up an HQ here), food deliveries, TVstreaming services, newspaper delivery and e-editions of books and magazines, it’s a great time to be a winter hermit. Howard Hughes would love it!
Perhaps nothing pairs better with cold nights at home than what I call super sippers — port, brandy and sherry. Traditionally known as digestifs, here are a few that have impressed me.
East India Solera Sherry Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
Sherry, which hails from the hot southern Spanish city of Jerez de la Frontera, gets its distinctiveness from its maturation process.
Sherry starts as a rather nondescript, low-alcohol white wine, often made from the Palomino grape. Then the magic happens. The wine is put in partially filled barrels where a layer of special yeasts called flor forms a frothy skin on the surface of the wine, protecting it from oxygen and giving it a unique sherry flavour. After exposure to the flor, the wine is classified — designations include Fino, Oloroso and Amontillado — and fortified with a neutral spirit to boost the alcohol level and kill the bacteria. Then it is aged in what is known as a solera system, where wines of varying ages are methodically blended for up to 30 years.
This spectacularly delicious wine started as a dry, aged Oloroso. A sweet wine made from the white grape Pedro Ximenez (also known as PX) was added to round out the flavour. Then it spent more time aging in soleras.
Oh, what a magical blend. Consisting of 80 per cent Palomino and 20 per cent PX, this dark amber wine boasts flavours of raisin, dried apricot, dried nectarine, walnut, marzipan and nutmeg. While it is sweet, it has enough acid to keep the sweetness in check. And the flavours resonate on the tongue for minutes. It is almost ethereal.
Price: About $28 for a 500-millilitre bottle. Look for it at Britannia Wine Merchants, Crowfoot Centre Liquor Store, Highlander Wine and Spirits, Metrovino, Olympia Liquor Store, Rocky Mountain Wine Spirits and Beer, Silver Springs Liquor Store, The Cellar, Varsity Wine Merchants, Vine Arts Wine and Spirits, Vine Styles, Willow Park Wines & Spirits, Wine and Beyond at Sage Hill, Zyn the Wine Market.
Drink: Now. Try it with nuts, blue cheese, creme brulee or on its own. Cork stopper; 20 per cent alc./vol.
20-year-old Tawny Port Porto, Portugal
Taylor Fladgate celebrated a major milestone in 2017 — 325 years in the port business. Still independently owned, the company based in Porto, Portugal, focuses solely on port, a fortified wine.
Made from a variety of different grapes grown in the hot Douro Valley, port is made like any other wine until about halfway through fermentation when a neutral grape brandy is added. The high alcohol in the brandy stops the fermentation, leaving a good amount of the grapes’ natural sugar in the wine.
Tawny ports have spent years, or decades, aging in large oak barrels. The wines blended together in this bottle have spent an average of 20 years in wood, giving the port refined flavours of all-spice, walnut, orange rind, almond, butterscotch and blackberry jam. As tawny ports get older, they lose their colour. This one is a pale orange-garnet tinge.
Price: About $60. It is widely available.
Drink: Now. Tawny port is ready for immediate enjoyment. Try it with blue cheese, fig pudding or mixed nuts. Cork stopper; 20 per cent alc./vol.
20 Superior Brandy Spain
While port and sherry are fortified grape wines, brandy is a distilled wine made from grapes or fruits such as apples or pears. We’ll focus on grape brandy here, which starts with a high-acid, low-alcohol wine that is distilled and then aged in barrels. The type of still used varies depending on where the brandy is made.
While the two most famous areas for brandy are in France — Cognac and Armagnac — Spain is also a well-regarded producer, with the international wine giant Torres a major player.
The Torres 20 is double distilled from a white wine blend of Ugni Blanc, the workhorse grape of Cognac, and Parelleda, a Catalan grape often used in Spain’s famous sparkling wine — Cava. The brandy is aged in new oak barrels for a year before being transferred to more neutral barrels.
Medium-garnet in colour and medium-full bodied, you’ll find flavours of vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, dried orange rind, smoke, apricot and lots of spice. It’s fresh, supple, smooth and balanced.
Price: About $70. Look for it at Bin 905, Canada Liquor Store, Craft Cellars, CSN Wine and Spirits, Eastport Liquor Store, Heritage Wine and Spirits, Star Liquor and Wine Boutique, The Cellar and Willow Park Wines & Spirits.
Drink: Now. This is a great spirit to be enjoyed on its own. Cork stopper; 40 per cent alc./vol.
X.O. Fine Petite Champagne Cognac, France
The most famous brandies in the world come from Cognac, the small region just north of Bordeaux. Chateau di Montifaud is a small, family-owned house that has been managed by the Vallet family for seven generations.
The grapes for the sublime Montifaud X.O. come from one of Cognac’s top sub-regions — Petite Champagne — which has no connection with the famous French sparkling wine. Using Ugni Blanc and Folle Blanche, this top-tier Cognac is aged in neutral oak barrels to minimize the oak flavouring.
Medium-amber in colour, the flavours include dried orange and lemon peel, walnut, caramel, butterscotch and all-spice. With a beautiful viscous mouth feel, it is smooth, soft and fresh with a bright spicy finish.
Price: About $95. Check with Aspen Wine and Spirits, Bin 905, Craft Cellars, Highlander Wine and Spirits, J. Webb Wine Merchant, Kensington Wine Market, Metrovino, Oak and Vine Wine and Spirits, Olympia Liquor, The Cellar, Vine Arts Wine, Beer and Spirits and Zyn the Wine Market.
Drink: Now. Enjoy it with good friends. Cork stopper; 40 per cent alc./vol.