ambrosia — (/æmˈbroʊʒə/, Greek: ἀμβροσία, “immortality”) food or drink of the Greek gods, often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumes it
Many years ago I was offered a glass of port during the dessert course of an elegant dinner party. I momentarily declined until I heard the same offer made to the guest sitting next to me, with one clarification. “It’s a 1935 Taylor.” Thankfully I changed my mind.
The only thing remotely resembling port that I had previously tasted was sherry, served by an odd duck British geography professor at his house following our weekly grad student discussions. I did not exactly love the social science of geography nor his small cups of sherry. The association was further clouded by a woman named Jean who was obsessed with becoming a mother and often cornered me and spoke about her vagina in the third person. Looking back, I realize that I was just a small town kid with extremely narrow views of such things as dessert wines and alternative meanings of speaking in tongues.
That 1935 Taylor port changed everything. It was no doubt the finest alcoholic beverage I had ever, and perhaps will ever imbibe. Only that and a 1959 Lafitte Rothschild qualify for wines I’ve drunk that might best be described as “ambrosia.” By this I mean an elixir so potent it engages all of your senses and your mind in a marvelous state of overload and euphoria. It wasn’t just the 1935 Taylor’s amazing tones of caramel, coffee, cigar, vanilla, cream, orange, and sour cherry that overwhelmed my taste buds. The pleasure sensors in my brain were ecstatically charged, like I’d just climbed a mountain or pulled off an electric performance or made love to a beautiful woman who equally loved me back; no, maybe ten times as potent as all that. I have been a fan of tawny port wines every since.
Aging casks at the Taylor port facility in Vila Nova de Gaia.
So it was a delight to find myself touring the hillside Taylor winery in Vila Nova de Gaia above the Duoro River opposite the city of Oporto. Since the late 17th Century the Portuguese have been making fortified port wines in this region. The grapes are grown a hundred miles or more upriver in the famous Duoro Valley, which has been recognized as a United Nations World Heritage site. After fermentation and barreling the wine is shipped down river to Gaia in the spring time where the cooler maritime influences of the Atlantic Ocean prevail and barrels and casks and bottles are stored in thick walled dark buildings where they can age for years or decades or as long as a century.
Stone vats where grapes are treaded by foot before being pressed.
Wine making traditions go back two thousand years in the Duoro Valley. Summers are hot, winters are harsh and the high Marão mountains create distinct growing conditions. By the end of the 17th Century, demand for wine was burgeoning in Northern Europe. The British observed that the Portuguese grapes, when blended with double-distilled aguardiente spirits before fermentation is completed, created deliciously complex and higher alcohol wines that could endure the challenges of transport and aging. Taylor has been making port wines since 1692. Dozens of other houses do the same. At night their huge neon signs blaze across the river to the wondrous city of Oporto hawking their brand names from the hills of Gaia.
After four enjoyable days of walking and eating our way through this charming city by the sea, where there is a wine shop on practically every block, we drove up the Duoro Valley to see where the grapes are grown. The extent of stone terraced walls boggles the mind: the history, beauty, and sheer volume of accomplishment of planting across the steep contours that rise from the river bottom all the way to the mountain tops. The entire country of Portugal seems to have been terraced over many thousands of years. Today, even wilder areas of scrub and what we might call chaparral in Northern California, appear to be growing from formerly terraced slopes. While we saw a diversity of inter-plantings of crops like olives, stone fruits, citrus, apples, persimmons and other Mediterranean horticultural marvels, vineyards rule the roost. Eighty different wine grape varieties are grown on the many quintas, or vineyards, in the Duoro. We learn that 60 percent are used for red wines, 30 percent for fortified ports, and 10 percent for rosé and white wines.
Terraced hills of Portugal’s Duoro Valley.
These soils are full of flakey schist rock and sometimes there is just one row of grapes on a single terrace and you can not only intuit the hard work embedded in this ancient stone walled landscape but also the hard life of the noble vines, trellised or head pruned, now red and orange and yellow in their mid November foliage. They no doubt benefit from the inspiration of the beautiful Duoro River running from Spain to the sea but irrigation is not allowed except in case of emergency, so the scrappy character of these dry farmed wines seems all the more impressive. After harvest the grapes are stomped by foot, often by groups of hired treaders who drink and sing and extract the colors and structure and other properties of the juice in massive stone vats called legares. The port wines ferment for just a few days before fortification, when fermentation is halted by the addition of 140 proof aguardiente in a one to five ratio. The grape skins have already yielded their color to the wine but some residual sweetness from the juice remain. The fortification prevents further sugar to alcohol conversion with a total of about 20 percent, but that is merely a beginning of the wine’s development.
There is much to learn about port wines. There are dark purple colored rubies and amber to yellow tawnies and even white and rosé ports. There are drink now Late Bottled Vintages and Reserves, age worthy Vintages and small barrel aged Tawnies that range from 6 years to 40 years and more, including distinct non-blended vintages called Colheitas, which are my favorite. The wines often age well in a bottle. Most ports are served chilled to enhance the flavor profiles as room temperature makes the alcohol more pronounced. All this says nothing of the many fine table wines also produced in the country.
We enjoy a picnic at Pinhao, a quaint town in the heart of the valley with a riverside harbor, watch fishermen casting leisurely in the autumn sun then drive for hours through the terraced mountains in a state of awe that an entire region could be so painstakingly managed, beautiful somehow and of natural materials and landed elements, but also a place so vast and intensively manipulated by the human hand and the human eye and the human brain. A day later we would be passing through oak savannah in west central Spain where the Duoro River originates, a bit astonished by what we have seen yet with many pleasant memories of our too short visit to Portugal.
P.S. A few buying tips : San Leonardo 10 Year Tawny and Maynard’s 20 Year Tawny.
