help with Vintage Port wine choice. Port wine mystery.
 

Greetings wine aficionados!!

We'll have a welcome dinner at the Barao Fladgate restaurant at Taylor's in Port. The restaurant offers a special service of opening vintage port wine bottles with hot tongues. I don'T know anything (yet) about port wine, so I am having a hard time figuring out which bottle we should order. I think I was kind of hoping to get one bottle to be drunk with dessert. Mostly it's for the "show" of actually seeing it being open.

Here are the options. Is it better to do a vintage port with dessert ( fyi ours will be chocolate cake with raspberries and port wine ice cream)? Or is it more of a main dish paring (Iberian pork tenderloin)? Any of these bottles better than others? Or should I just randomly pick?


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...530c46f921.png

Would love to hear what you'd do ;)

The chocolate cake with raspberries would be perfect with your vintage port. The port would also go well with a cheese course.

The Douro valley also produces gorgeous wine to go with your main course of pork tenderloin.

I've had Taylor's Quinta De Vargellas Vintage Port many times, but didn't take note of the vintages. I'm more of tawny port fan; my husband is the vintage port drinker, though day to day he drinks LBVs (Late Bottled Ports).. I would try to find some online reviews of those vintages on offer. This being said, vintage port is only made in exceptional years from the best grapes. So they're all going to be great. You might want to read advice from the experts:
https://www.winespectator.com/vintag...s/search/id/46
https://www.decanter.com/learn/vinta...-guide-380297/

Hope this helps.
https://www.jancisrobinson.com/learn...-and-the-douro

Oh, wow... Thank you Diamantina, so much!!! Great information! Now really makes me excited about trying some real port wine soon! I've looked at the links you've provided. Leaning towards Taylor's Quinta De Vargellas Vintage Port 2005. Being a newbie, I like the sound that it's almost 15 years old, and the links you've sent say that it was a great year with 5/5 on Decanter site. What do you think? Good choice?

I'm sorry. I'm not qualified to answer that but my guess is it'll probably be fine and delicious with your dessert. It currently sells for $55 in the U.S. You can expect to pay much more at the winery, but I wouldn't pay too much more..
https://www.klwines.com/Products/i?i=1033869
https://www.winemag.com/buying-guide...lend-port-port

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Oh, that's interesting. Also interesting that the restaurant sent me two different price lists:
so in the best-case scenario, it'd be 50EUR and in the worst 65EUR. Haven't figured out why two price lists :nervous:

I would go for the Vergellas 2001 or the Terra Feita 2005, which were both excellent portwine years.
I love port wines but never drink them with a meal ... with 18-20% alcohol that would just be too much. IMO it's better to savour them as an aperitif, a digestif or with dessert (especially a chocolate dessert).

I agree that port goes with dessert and cheese, and not a main course. Even better with cheese... But if none of you are port drinkers as yet, and are mainly interested in the theater, I would go with the cheapest. They will all be good, and I doubt your palates are up to telling the difference, since you have no experience.

In Portugal we use to put port wine (mainly ruby, but it can be tawny as well) inside litle melons (google translator is not helping, the name of the fruit in portuguese is meloa, so if you want to know what it is just try to find images). We cut the fruit in two, take the seeds and fill the hole with port, Than we eat it. It's very good.

Thank you everyone! I might let the price be a factor a litle more ;)) Thursdaysd is probably right saying that we would not be able to tell one port wine from another during our welcome dinner in Portugal... but I hope that is going to change by the time we leave Portugal.
And the melon with port wine sounds interesting!

HelenaFatima-we do almost the same thing in France using the Melon Charentais and putting Pineau des Charentes in the middle-it is made from the cognac grape so I suspect is a bit of the same tradition although different flavor. We are headed to Portugal in March so I want to try the melon with Port in it!

In this blog they even mention substituting Port for Pineau

https://www.theramblingepicure.com/w...lon-au-pineau/

The melon usually served with port is an Ogen melon-ogen melão in Portuguese or the Charentaise Melon.


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