Port - Definitions and Recommendations

Jack's Port Flip - Kevin Danks
Purchasing a Good Port - Astrid Bear
The Nine Styles of Port - Charlie
Vintage Port and the Royal Navy - John Arthur
Port Recommendations
             Doug Essinger-Hileman
             John Arthur
             G. John Marmet
             Adam Quinan
             Brian Davis
             Bryce Rumbles
             Don Seltzer
             Shelley
             Gary Sims
Port and Cheese
             Doug Essinger-Hileman
             Anthony Clover
             Doug, Two
             Kyle Lerfald
             Bill Nyden

Jack's Port Flip - Kevin Danks
Jack, a traditionalist, I'm sure would ask for a Port Flip:
1 glass Port
1 dash sugar syrup
1 yolk of egg
Shake. Serve in large wine glass

Purchasing a Good Port - Astrid Bear
There are two broad classifications of port -- vintage and non-vintage. Vintage port will have a year on the label, say 1995. It will also have a traditional wine-type cork, that you'll need a corkscrew to pull out. This stuff, yummy beyond compare, needs to be drunk up within days, or two or three weeks at most. After that the flavors will dissipate and it won't be nearly as yummy.
Non-vintage port is blended from several years' vintages. It will come on a bottle with a "T-cork", that you can open without an corkscrew since it has a wide plastic shoulder to the top of the cork that you can pull out with your hand. It will keep for two or three months after opening, maybe longer.
So if you think your husband will only nibble away at the port over a longish time, go for non-vintage. If you want to give him a treat that you'll both enjoy with the many upcoming holiday feasts, go for vintage.
Go to your local nice, independent wine shop and ask for their recommendations. They'll ask some questions about your/his tastes and come up with good options that they have in stock that day. And don't be afraid to say, "I want something in the $20 range" or whatever your budget is -- they like matching people with wines they can afford, rather than pushing you out of a price range that you are comfortable with.
For a good discussion of the various types of port, so you'll have some vocabulary under your belt, try Into Wine: Enjoying Port Wine and click on "The Wine".

The NIne Styles of Port - Charlie
- White port. Made of white grapes in different styles ranging from sweet to almost dry. Intended to be consumed as an aperitif. I've never seen the point of it. Drink sherry instead.

- Ruby and branded port. Made of simple, fruity, rather light wines judged to be of too low quality for use in other styles of port. Aged in wood for 2 years, bottled and released for immediate consumption. The cheapest port. Some rubies aren't bad, most are not interesting at all. Branded port from good producers can be rather better.

- Tawny port. Cheapest tawnies are blends of ruby and white ports and are rarely worth the bottle they are sold in. Real tawnies are aged for many years in wood until tawny in colour. Basic tawnies are bottled when they are 5 years old. Much superior are tawnies that are aged from 10 to 40 years in casks. They are invariably a blend of vintages - the age indicated on the label is the average one of the wines used.
10-year-old ports from good producers can be very good indeed.
20-year-old ones can achieve perfection. These are the best values in port.
30 and 40-year-old ports rarely justify their premium prices.
There are also some good branded tawnies.

- Colheita port. This is a tawny port sold with a vintage date on the label. However, these wines are blends of different vintages too - but the addition of younger wines takes place in the barrel over a period of years, rather than just before bottling, as is the case with tawny port. Colheita ports are often 20 or 30 years old when released.

- Vintage port. Made of best wines in exceptional vintages. Kept in wood for 2 years, bottled and destined for long maturation. It would be infanticide to drink it before it is at least 10 years old. In great vintages, make it 20 years at least. It always leaves a heavy deposit in the bottle and has to be decanted.

- Single-quinta port. This is a vintage port made from wines from a single vineyard. Made in good, but not exceptional vintages. Can be very good indeed. Throws a deposit and needs to be decanted.

- Late-Bottled Vintage (LBV). Port from a single vintage that is held in cask for twice as long as vintage port (4-5 years). It is lighter and ages much faster. A pale imitation of vintage port, it can nevertheless be quite good.

- Vintage Character. This is made like a LBV, but is blended from different vintages. Basically, this is a superior ruby in style.

- Crusted port. Blended from a number of vintages and aged 4 years in bottle. Unlike LBV and Vintage Character ports, these are not filtered before bottling and so form a 'crust.' Need to be decanted. It seems, they are to be found only in the UK. They are generally very good wines, much closer in style to vintage port than LBV or Vintage Character.

Vintage Port and the Royal Navy - John Arthur
Port first became popular when the English were at war with France, and could therefore not drink French wines. The English went in search of a new location to set up vineyards, and the Duoro Valley proved to be quite suitable. The vineyards are laid out along very steep hills, terraced to provide footing for the vines.
In the seafaring days when this occurred, something had to be done to wine to allow it to survive the long ocean journeys. Brandy was added to allow the wine to last longer, and to be more resistant to temperature changes. Wines altered like this were called "fortified wines", and port is one of the more famous of the fortifieds.
It is generally acknowledged that Dow is the firmest, driest style of Port, and Graham the sweetest. Warre sits stylistically between the two, while Taylor is probably the most elegant. Croft and Smith Woodhouse are slightly earlier maturing, while the excellent value Gould Campbell is more backward.
Vintage Port is one of the great wines of the world and is best consumed at the end of a meal surrounded by good friends. Port, either in bottle or decanter, is traditionally passed from right to left or clockwise around the table.
During my service in the Royal Navy sixty years ago, when conditions allowed we occasionally dined formally in the wardroom, perhaps with the Captain as our guest, but more often on our own. We would dress for dinner as appropriate. In the tropics, Red Sea rig, or a white bum-freezer and cummerbund. Otherwise our best (Superfine) uniforms with a stick-up collar and bow tie. The Royal Marines would have provided a string quartet in the ante-room, with the bandmaster traditionally being rewarded with a glass of port. Before dinner we would gather round the bar in the ante-room drinking either sherry (La Ina) or Plymouth Gin, usually neat and pink, but NEVER with any addition other than the Angostura.
Either the Chaplain or the President of the mess would precede the meal with the traditional naval grace: a bang on the table followed by the words "Thank God". After (usually) a four course meal the port decanter would be produced, and placed before the President. He would, before he poured himself a glass, push it towards the officer seated on his left and so it would go round the table. When all the glasses had been charged he would say "Mr Vice, the King." The words would be echoed around the table and the loyal toast would be drunk seated as is the time honoured custom. I think Jack Aubrey would have felt at home. After dinner the officers would repair to the ante-room and usually play some rather boisterous games: "Cardinal Pouf" was one of them, but that's another story.
I was fortunate after the war in having as a friend (a onetime Greenjacket and an old-Etonian) who was a retired solicitor and a partner in his family port business. I would be invited to dine, really as an excuse for him to open and decant a bottle of vintage port. After dinner, the ladies (of course) would withdraw. They retired to the kitchen to do the washing-up whilst Reggie and I attacked the port. The earliest one I remember was a '97 Dow, but we managed to sample most of the other vintage years. I think life was more civilised then.
Port was drunk in pubs, usually by working-class women, with lemon. But non-vintage, of course.

Port Recommendations
Doug Essinger-Hileman
When I polled the Gunroom about Port, I accumulated a list of Ports which are reasonable in price, but quite good. On that list are:
Taylor's "40 Year Old" Tawny Port
Cockburn's
Harvey's Director's Bin
Quinta da Noval
Sandeman's
Niepoort
Berry Bors and Rudd of St James' Street
Ficklin
Six Grapes
I would add Fonseca Bin No. 27. Since compiling that list, I have tasted Fonseca Bin No. 27 (thanks to the generosity of a certain Gunroom traveller), and Sandeman's Tawny Port and Founder's Reserve. I can recommend all of them.

John Arthur
I was browsing through my wine-merchants's list and I came upon these two vintage ports:
• 1966 Graham - Portugal
Full Bodied, Sweet, Ready, but will keep, Port Blend, 20% alc.
Full-bodied, concentrated, rich and classy on the palate. One of the wines of the vintage and is still marvellously fresh and fragrant. Drinking well now and will continue to give pleasure to Port lovers over the next 10-15 years.
Special price (for unsplit orders of 12): £90.05; Bottle 75 cl £115.00
• 1977 Graham - Portugal
Full Bodied, Sweet, Ready, but will keep, Port Blend, 20% alc.
Concentrated, smooth, spicy vintage Port from one of the best vintages of the last century. In magnum, there could be no more majestic end to a meal.
Special price (for unsplit orders of 6): £127.21 Magnum; 150 cl £150

G. John Marmet
My favorite is almost any vintage of Porto Croft.

Adam Quinan
I am of the opinion that one should drink the true Porto from Portugal, and not imitations, no matter how excellent. For a beginner, a late bottled vintage port from a known shipper would probably be a good introduction to the wine.
Here is a Toronto magazine page of recommendations, note the prices are in Canadian dollars so you may be able to get it for less. Toronto Life: Wine Guide: Dow's 2000 Late Bottled Vintage Port

Brian Davis
Was going to respond with 'Southampton' but have to agree with Adam, whose taste in alcoholic beverages is second to none.

Bryce Rumbles
I have an upcoming opportunity to sample a small variety of ports this weekend, and wished for the Gunroom to weigh in with recommendations. Here are my choices: • Geyser Peak Shiraz Port
• Osborne LBV Porto 97
• Seppelt Trafford Port
• Taylor Fladgate Porto
• Graham's Tawny Port 10 yo
• Marsala Dry and Sweet
• Sandeman 20 yo Tawny Port
• Cockburn Anno LBV Porto 97
• Churchill's 10 yo Tawny Port
• Sandeman Ruby Port
• Cockburn Special Reserve

Don Seltzer
I've occasionally bought a bottle of Cockburn's Tawny Port, imaging that there might be some connection to Capt Cockburn of Nelson's Band of Brothers. Apparently not, but the winery was founded by a former soldier in Wellington's army, Robert Cockburn, in 1815. Perhaps enjoyed by Jack and Stephen after the wars.

Shelley
I prefer tawny ports to reds, I just think they have more flavor.
Galway Pipe is good and inexpensive around $10-$15
Dow's is a good house prices vary, closer to $30
Some of the Muscats from Australia are excellent as well.

Gary Sims
Sandeman Founders Reserve, about $17 average in Southern California.
Also... "Three Grapes" I think it is. Maybe "Six Grapes". Damn, I hate getting old and senile. Anyway they count the buggers. Presumably that's the number of vintages in the blend, but I just know it drinks well. Different than Sandeman, but a matter of taste not quality in my inexpert opinion. About a dollar more than Sandeman FR usually. I prefer it slightly, but not enough to hunt around and it isn't often shelved in our stores.
Six it is. And the full name is Graham's Six Grapes Port. When Don pointed out that Cockburn's is a Portuguese port founded by a Scot, I suffered a moment of angst: could it be that Sandeman and Cockburn were the ones from vineyards founded by Scots? Not the Numbered Grapes? Was I preferring a port offered by some bloody furriner?
But no. The web site for Graham's brags of their Scottish connections, though it is a little more complex than simple ownership.
See Graham's Port.
It is interesting that so many ports shipped out of Portugal come with a Scottish connection of one sort or another. That history link explains it a little bit and it apparently is all down to that damned Corsican, as so many things from that period are, but that doesn't explain why the English weren't the ones who started the importing instead of the Scots.
Incidentally, both are blends as someone explained, but another difference from vintages is that you will find 'distinction' among vintages. Great years and not so great, as well as "pleases my palette" or "not to my taste". And all this from the same source I suppose, but different years. I've never developed enough interest to find out which vintages fall into the class of "pleases my palette" and which do not, so I prefer a blended port. Not so much a matter of taste as of knowing your own taste. I don't. At least not well enough to pick vintages without too much pot luck involved for my interest level.
So unless you know your husband's taste in ports, better to pick a high-quality blended port. Sort of a 'designer' vintner's choice of what "drinks well" I suppose. In lower quality blends, I'm sure you must endure a vintner's effort to make a poor year drinkable by blending it with years that balance the over-whatness of this one and bring out the whichness of that one. Sandeman FR and Numbered Grapes seem to be efforts to bring out the best of several good years rather than attempts to salvage bad ones. All of this is speculation from a know-nothing of course. I never did speak Oenophilic and my med schedule makes it impossible to have more than one glass a day anyway.
Both of these blends are from Portugal, but from Vineyards there founded by Scots sometime around Stephen and Jack's time. So consider my bias when deciding.

Port and Cheese
Doug Essinger-Hileman
If I were to combine a cheese with port for dessert, the cheese would have to be hearty in order not to be overpowered by the port. Perhaps a good, extra-sharp (of course, there is no such thing as a good cheddar that is not extra-sharp!) cheddar.

Anthony Clover
Doug, I think your reasoning is wholly correct. Possibly, however, you are unaware that in Britain a really good Stilton is bought in a shape as large as a small drum, so there is no way it can be eaten at one go. So that it keeps well and moist thereafter, there is a tradition whereby one pours a small amount of port into the centre scooped out at previous meals and covers it with a lid. This continues until it is all eaten up. It is therefore the natural thing to drink port with it at future meals - just as you suggest, the port goes with its intrinsic tanginess. Indeed, some people aver that this is the only way to indulge in even the best of Stilton and that it improves over time under this treatment.

Doug, Two
Though I was not aware of the tradition of keeping the cheese moist by covering with port, I am familiar with Stilton. Yes, it is just as good a choice with port as is a good extra-sharp cheddar.

Kyle Lerfald
Try Warres Six-Grape. A cheese recommendation, my good old reliable Maytag Blue, served with pear slices. If no Maytag Blue, than perhaps a nice Stilton. Not precisely exotic, but good holiday fare.

Bill Nyden
Six Grapes is bottled by Graham. It is a relatively inexpensive choice, and has just the right combination of sugar, acid and robust fruit to go well with a sharp cheese or by itself (to my palate, any road).