Fortified & Satisfied

May 11

Raise your hand if you enjoy chocolate chip cookies.

If you have time for dessert, you have time for port. It’s a shame that we have little to no after-dinner wine culture here in the US. Of course, there are pockets of interest here and there, but I imagine when most of us think of port we picture a stuffy library occupied by an old man in a smoking jacket sipping away on a sickly-sweet glass of wine. And while I miss Downton Abbey, these aren’t the images I want to perpetuate as I talk to you about port.

If I described a wine whose grapes were hand-picked, foot-trodden, and fermented with natural yeasts, you might think of some natty producer making weird and crunchy wines for the local hipsters. But these are the methods of Churchill’s Port. Founded in 1981 by Johnny Graham, the company has committed to sustainable farming practices and minimal intervention production from day one. Johnny’s mission is to share his love of dry, age-worthy port while adhering to traditional techniques.

Johnny comes by his love of port honestly as a member of the Graham family (Churchill’s is named for his wife, Caroline). Along with her and his brothers-in-law, Johnny set off to create his unique style of ports each with its own level of freshness, a trait rarely attributed to port.

If I only told you about Churchill’s Reserve level port it would be more than enough to satisfy your cravings and curiosities, but before do, let’s talk a little about the history of port and how it’s made. Like many events throughout history, the saga of port begins with a fight between the French and the English. Unable to import wine from France, a bunch of Englishmen turned to Portugal to satiate their thirst for fortified wine.

What does ‘fortified’ mean? To ensure quality during a wine’s long journey back to Old Blighty, brandy would be added to fermenting wine guaranteeing stabilization. Originally, these spirits were added to wine made from grapes that ripened quickly, which meant that their sugars were fully developed. Adding brandy to the mix not only made the wine safe for long voyages, but it also obviously increased the abv. The result was a rich, sweet, full-bodied wine sure to comfort weather-worn sailors.

But these were not the stylized wines of Johnny Churchill. They were thick, hot (as in high alcohol), and too sweet. The wine that comes from Churchill’s today is allowed to ferment on its own schedule, the grapes are not overly ripe, and they each share a smack of freshness that hits you on the finish. Port is not a style of wine I naturally associate dryness with, and that’s okay. If I’m tucking into some banana bread or a mocha brownie, I want an accompaniment that matches them in sweetness, better yet exceeds them.

But the Churchill’s ports provide the best of both worlds. Sweetness is there in just the right amount, and, defying expectation, an incredible amount of acidity is maintained in each wine. And rather than end in a long trail of cloying sweetness, these wines finish, quite smoothly, in a whoosh of unexpected dryness that leaves you wanting more.

So, the next time you get to baking, remember port. The next time you need to give a gift, reach for the ten or twenty-year-old Tawnies. And if you have no idea what port tastes like, start with the Reserve. You won’t regret it.