It started on a whim.

I’m really not sure what made me wake up one day with the desire to buy a bottle of Port. I’m not much of a drinker. Like many people, I enjoy a glass of wine with dinner. But I’ve never made a habit of it, and I don’t claim to know the first thing about it. I have never been to a tasting, never toured the nearby wineries of Napa or Sonoma, never taken a class or perused a copy of Wine Spectator. And Port? Please. I’d only tasted Portugal’s finest one or two times in my life. Good, I remembered. Classy. And expensive. This was the extent of my knowledge.

But there I was with this odd notion rattling around in my head. Bemused, I posted to Facebook: “Next time I’m feeling flush I think I’ll buy a nice bottle of Port.” I was half-kidding. My friends followed up with jokes about smoking jackets and cigars. And that was almost the end of it.

Almost, but not quite.

A few days later my wife Lisa and I happened to be at a local Cost Plus market. They have a decent selection of inexpensive wines there, much smaller than you’d find at a specialty shop but usually worth a look. I had just finished reading Martin Walker’s The Dark Vineyard, a pleasant mystery novel set in the southwest of France, and the preponderance of wine in that book had made me interested in sampling some French reds, so I wandered over. But as I was perusing the selection, Lisa called to me from the other end of the aisle. “Look, honey, they have Port!”

There were perhaps half a dozen bottles there, but even that small assortment was enough to leave me dizzy. Ruby? Tawny? LBV? I had no idea what any of it meant, or which ones I might enjoy. But my eye soon settled on one particular bottle. While most of the others were pretty cheap, this one was about $30. But that wasn’t all that made it stand out. GRAHAM’S, the label declared proudly, TAWNY PORTO. AGED 10 YEARS. It practically radiated sophistication. But the price… I hemmed and hawed for a few moments, subconsciously fingering my wallet, but Lisa saw right through me. “Go ahead,” she said. “Buy the good one.” I bought the good one.

And I fell in love.

It took one sip, and one sip only, to realize I’d discovered something wonderful. By the time I’d finished off my little cordial glass of Port, I was hooked. And by the time I’d worked my way through the bottle, I was obsessed. I devoured every scrap of data I could find online about Port. I watched videos about the history of Port. I studied up on the varieties, until I knew the difference between a Vintage Port and a Colheita (more or less, anyway; don’t quiz me just yet). And in the end, I drew three conclusions:

1. I love Port. This is my drink. I never even knew I had a drink before, but I do. And I’m gonna be a Port guy for the rest of my life.

2. My only interest is in Aged Tawny Port, at least for now. Why? Because it’s more affordable than top-tier Vintage Port. Because it’s ready to drink the day you buy it. Because it will last for a few weeks after it’s opened, so I can sip and savor at my own pace. And because it tastes so gosh-darned good. Eventually, I expect to branch out into the full range of Port offerings, and there are many. But I think Aged Tawnies should keep me occupied for a good long while.

3. I want to spread the word. I don’t kid myself: I’m as green as a blade of grass in this world of Port. I KNOW NOTHING. But I don’t care. I’m going to make use of my naïvete. I’m going to explore, slowly and methodically, and I’m going to write down what I discover. Veteran oenophiles aren’t likely to find much value in these observations, but I know I will. Maybe you will too.

Unfortunately, I did not record my impressions of the Graham’s 10-year Tawny that launched my new mania. So I must return to square one. In my reading, there seems to be a consensus that aged tawnies really hit their peak at the 20-year mark, so that’s where I shall begin this journey. I have just spent the past two weeks in the company of a lovely bottle of Niepoort 20-Year Tawny, and my impressions will be posted tomorrow.

This is going to be fun!

FURTHER READING

There’s a lot of material online about Port, but I find that much of it was written by people who know a great deal about wine and very little about writing. Here are a few articles that rise above the crowd:

Tawny Time — aside from the curiously catty third paragraph, this excellent feature by Dave McIntyre packs a lot of useful info into a very readable package. (San Francisco Chronicle – July 6, 2006)

Basics of Tawny Port — this article from the specialty site For the Love of Port is written for a professional food-service audience, but is great for newbies too. It goes into great detail about the various kinds of Tawny and what to expect from each. FTLoP also has a busy forum area, but Vintage Port dominates the discussion.

This short video from the History Channel’s “Modern Marvels” series has some nifty historical facts as well as a great peek at the robotic grape-stomper developed by the Symington Family Estates…