WINTER WARMER

Iam writing this column with a hot water bottle on my lap. Our little fireplace is already being put to good use this winter; the 4.5 tog duvet has given way to the 10.5; and we’re currently working our way through a bottle of Boplaas Cape Vintage Port 2012 — at 17.99% alcohol by volume surely the best possible way of warming up from the inside.

Made in the same way as its Portuguese counterparts in the Douro Valley, the Boplaas is a blend of 80% touriga nacional, 18% tinta barocca and 2% souzão that spent 24 months maturing in oak barrels (shelf price between R85 and R100). Its creators, the sixth-generation Nel family of Calitzdorp, reckon it’ll age well for up to 30 years but I’ve decided I can live with my conscience after committing vinous infanticide on this one bottle, delectably sweet at 78.6 grams per litre of residual sugar, accompanied by a few pieces of dark chocolate.

Port’s traditional match, however, is cheese — and most famously Stilton, the creamy, crumbly, semi-hard blue cheese made exclusively in the English counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. Its rich, tangy flavour and mouth-coating fat content will pretty much ruin any table wine you try to serve with it, dulling the fruit while accentuating the tannins.

It takes the body and sweetness of port to stand up to the power of most blue cheeses; of very intensely flavoured mature cheeses in general. I reckon a wedge of Dalewood Fromage’s Huguenot, aged for a minimum of six months, or some slow-matured Healey’s Farmhouse Cheddar would also go down a treat with the Boplaas. If you’re a port lover, or want to find out more, the Absa Calitzdorp Port & Wine Festival is taking place on June 14 and 15. See www.portwinefestival.co.za for more information.