Tawny ports are intense, sweet drinks — and fair value

There are few drinks as instantaneously appealing as tawny port. To give you some idea of the huge charm of the drink, note the name of the city of origin, roughly translated as the New City of the World. In short, when they first made the stuff, the Portuguese understood that they were now a destination city.

It is an intense, sweet drink that is the perfect accompaniment for dried fruits, chocolate and nuts. Cheesecake anyone? This is the stuff to enjoy with it. This is such an enormously popular drink — I’ve never heard a chef say they don’t like it — that it has been copied by every wine nation around the world. Some of these copies are great (Australia) and some of them are horrible. The curious thing is that the copies that are any good are usually more expensive than the original. In fact, latterly Portuguese wines including their tawny port (their most popular export) are very reasonably priced.

The grapes are picked exceptionally ripe (almost as ripe as Californian Pinot Noir) and fermented. Fermentation is stopped with addition of aguardente, a brandy made from the same grapes. Then the wines are left in the barrel to age. And age. And age some more. You can buy tawny ports 40 and more years old, at which point they really are a liqueur rather than a wine. For my money, the 20-yearold is the best bang for the buck and usually where we drink.

It is a fine silky textured drink with a flavour of nuts and exotic fruits and spices. As it ages it becomes tawnier, almost golden in the oldest bottlings. The wines are a blend of various vintages of a variety of ages and the age on the bottle indicates an average of the age of the wines used. Port houses have casks dating back to the 1860s for blending purposes.

Fine Old Tawny ports are typically about five years old, and after that you will get an age on the bottle. Although most people tend to go for the big number ages, these drinks should not be ignored. In fact, in my most recent blind tastings both Sairey — a woman who has been known to attach a nipple to 20-year-old bottles — and the pharmacy babes all picked Croft Tawny as their favourite wine.

I wasn’t expecting much from this bottle, so to say I was astonished is an understatement. On drinking it, I decided that Croft is selling a product much finer than mere price indicates. Whether this is a deliberate market strategy or inventory control from a number of very fine years, I have no way of knowing.

It’s young for a tawny — I’d guess under five years. It is slightly redder in the glass than the others listed here, with a ripe fruit and fig bouquet and a bit more brightness. It is a very mellow drink that is utterly amazing with milk chocolate. Given the price point, I would expect a bottle to be on the counter of every chocolate-lover in the country.

Otima 10 Year Old is somewhat more refined, with a bouquet of oranges and apricots and caramel at room temperature. Warre’s, the producer, recommends serving at fridge temperature, which makes the acidity and balance more apparent. The 10 is also an excellent starting point for fruit-driven cocktails.

Otima 20 is the step up towards what I think of as real tawny. The colour is paler, a sort of tawny blond with those nutty caramel and dried orange scents that are just fabulous. (I tend to drink tawny from a snifter and good part of the time I spend sniffing rather than drinking.)

The best selling tawny port in North America is the Taylor Fladgate 20. This is not exactly a flagship wine, but they spend a lot of time making sure it is right. And calling this wine right is like calling an aircraft carrier big. This is a hugely reliable, wonderfully decadent wine. I love dark chocolate and this is where I go for a good match with dark chocolate, maybe an orange or some dried apricots, and walnuts. Way more fun than M&Ms.