Missouri Wines

Port Wine for Stormy Winter Nights

Updated at October 04, 2006 22:06

By Doug Frost

“Any port in a storm” goes the old saw, and it’s not hard to understand. Sailor or not, a stormy evening seems far friendlier when your hands are wrapped around a glass of rich port.

Port is a fortified wine. Port and its brethren sherry and Madeira are called “fortified” because they are bolstered with distilled spirit. In the old days, a dose of spirit was added to fortify the wines for a voyage to England or farther shores.

The best ports hail from Portugal. Indeed, port is named for the Portuguese port city of Oporto. But plenty of other countries and regions produce good port-styled wines. Most Missouri ports are made from the Norton grape. The intensity of the Norton grape is ideal for port, partly as a result of our intensely hot summers.

Missouri’s first modern port wine of fame was Mount Pleasant Missouri Port; back in the 1980s, Wine Spectator, the most popular American wine magazine, anointed it one of the best port-styled wines made in America.

Mount Pleasant’s vintage port is still tasty and lauded; the 2002 costs $30. Newcomer Crown Valley Vineyards has quickly become one of the reliable, quality wineries in Missouri. Its port, also $30, warms you well on a cold wintry night.

Picturesque Les Bourgeois Winery and Bistro, perched above the Missouri River, has a delightful 2002 port, $20.

Port doesn’t have to be consumed next to a raging fire. Adam Puchta’s well-made Vintage Port 2001, $22, or Hermanhoff ’s lush port, also $22, are great with dessert.

Because alcohol levels range from 13 to 20 percent, fortified port wines have more body that most other wines. Wines with that kind of bone structure may show up at dessert time simply because they’re the biggest wines around. But port’s inherent sweetness also makes it the ideal match for chocolate. Port and chocolate may be most people’s idea of dessert heaven.

February 2006

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