A glass of port on a cold evening is one of life's simple, perfect pleasures. Port makes a great end to a good meal, and the ideal accompaniment to a crackling fire (with a good cigar, in my case). And yet this great elixir remains a stranger to many wine buffs. With this column, that is a situation I hope to change.

Port came about when the English—at odds with their French neighbors (what's new?)—turned to their friends in Portugal to satisfy their appetite for wine. To stabilize the wines for shipment (they were much thinner than the wines of today), grape brandy was added. The higher alcohol content had the effect of stopping fermentation prematurely, which left unfermented grape sugars in the wine. Thus by accident and necessity did a whole new style of fortified wine come to be formulated. By the mid-sixteen-hundreds the English appetite for port had grown to the point where British merchants were building shipping houses in the northern Portuguese city of Oporto, at the mouth of the Douro River, to satisfy demand in the home country.

Which explains why one of Portugal's best-known port houses carries such a non-Portuguese-sounding name. The W&J Graham's Port House was established in 1820, and produces a variety of port types that fall into two broad categories—those aged in a barrel and those aged in the bottle. Ports aged in wood casks are ready to drink once filtered and bottled. Those matured in the bottle are unfiltered, and require years of aging before they're ready for drinking. An interesting side note was the English gentleman's tradition of buying port for a newborn son. When the boy was old enough to drink port; the port was ready to drink.

The two styles of wood port most commonly seen are 'Ruby' ($18) and 'Tawny' ($38). The simplest and least expensive, ruby port is aged only a few years in bulk, and bottled young. Thus it retains its deep ruby color and fruit character. It is best served slightly chilled and can be enjoyed as an aperitif. Tawny ports may appear with age designations on the label (10 years through 40 years); or without for bulk tawnies. Tawny ports with age designations are matured in the barrel, where their initial bright ruby color gives way to a lighter tawny-brown hue and more delicate, mature flavor characteristics develop. The price for a ten-year-old port starts around $35 and rises accordingly.

The most common bottle-aged ports on the market are vintage character ports. Graham's Proprietary Blend ($24) is called the 'Six Grapes Reserve,' which refers to the depiction on the barrels. These blends are rich and robust, but still economically enough priced to suit frequent fireside drinking.

For the best value and vintage-like character, try a Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) ($28). Graham's will have a vintage year on the label but remains in the barrel for between four and six years, unlike the quality declared vintages that spend just two years in the barrel and are aged entirely in the bottle for the remainder. This wine is bursting with concentrated red berry flavors and peppery overtones. An excellent introduction to vintage ports.

Graham's Vintage Ports are renowned for their richness and concentration. Vintage years are only produced on the best of vintages and develop in the bottle for decades. Heavy sediment deposits form over the years, requiring the wine to be decanted before the are drunk. These wines exhibit layer upon layer of fruit complexity and those with the patience to wait will be well rewarded. A note: if buying a wine to commemorate a birth date or wedding, port is one that can go the distance. Vintage ports can cost upwards of $100—a cost that will rise as the passage of time makes a vintage less available.

Steve Staples (seated, above) has been encouraging the enjoyment of wine in Baton Rouge for twenty-five years. By day a rep with Glazer’s Companies of Louisiana, by night Steve teaches several wine appreciation classes as part of the LSU Leisure Classes program. More information on Steve's classes HERE.

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