Food + Dining

Perfect Port

By Brianne Harrison • Photographs by Stephen D. Johnsen

At the beginning of December, I had the chance to visit one of my favorite New Jersey wineries, Unionville Vineyards, in Ringoes, for the debut of their latest port, Vat 15. Unionville started producing wine in 1987 and recently relaunched, and the vineyard has hit the ground running. Most recently, their Pinot Noir took home a gold medal at a prestigious sommelier’s challenge held in California. (I had the opportunity to try the Pinot before the port tasting began, and it is quite delicious).

Unionville produces some excellent wines, but this weekend was all about the port. Vat 15 is actually a blend of all the ports produced from Unionville’s Chambourcin grapes between 2000 and 2007 (omitting 2003, which was apparently such a bad year that no port was made). The ports run the gamut from young, fruit-forward rubies to darker, richer aged tawnys. Stephen Johnsen, the assistant winemaker, who was running the show, was nice enough to fill us all in on the creation process. Port is fortified with brandy, which Unionville procures from California, and then aged in old American oak barrels. Unionville does port blends, rather than bottling up individual years, and there’s no set formula for how the blending is done. As Johnson explained, the blends are done the same way a chef might do a dish: tasting and adding, for instance, more ruby for a stronger fruit flavor, or more tawny for a smoother, richer flavor. Before we got to the big attraction, we had a taste of each port that went into Vat 15, so we could see where 15’s flavors came from. Here’s what we tasted:

2001: This was the oldest and, therefore, the tawniest. I expected it to be mostly rich and sweet, especially after I caught a whiff of its bold, rounded nose, but it was surprisingly spicy and tannic, with a slightly nutty flavor and an easy finish. An excellent start.

2002: The second oldest port in the vat also had the nutty flavor of the 2001, but this was a sweeter

nut than ’01—more like pecan. Otherwise, 2002 seemed like a slightly less concentrated form of 2001. It was a bit sweeter and less spicy, but it had beautiful caramel and chocolate flavors with a peppery finish, which was something of an inversion of ’01, which had the peppery flavor in the middle, rather than at the end.

2004: 2003 was a very wet year, which made for bad port-making grapes, so we moved right on to 2004. This port was more ruby colored than the two predecessors, which had the rusty color common to tawny ports (hence the name). It had definite honey and clover on the nose and was very chocolaty up front in flavor. There’s also a not unpleasant flavor of slightly underripe peach, sour cherries, and a somewhat acidic finish which would probably make this port a nice follow up to a rich dinner.

2005: This port was lighter than 2004 and also softer on the nose, but had a similar bouquet to ’04, with the pleasant addition of an orange blossom aroma. The flavor was also softer and rounder than 2004, with a sweet, mellow finish and the slightest hint of acidity.

2006: ’06 had quite the bouquet, and the flavor to match it. Chocolate, caramel, walnut, and hazelnut were all definitely there in a rich, sweet, palate-coating mouthful. This was apparently the best year for port, and it shows. It was amazingly balanced, less dominated by pepper and acid than the others, although those were both present as well (in the middle, rather than at the end, as it was with most of the others). Definitely a port to be savored.

2007: The final year that went into Vat 15. We detected the aroma of roasted coffee beans and a slightly leathery tang. Flavor-wise, this was much more fruit forward than the others, with flavors of apples and peaches standing out to me the most. I also detected a hint of pear, blackberry, raspberry,

and citrus.

Vat 15: What we all came for. Vat 15 was rich and full on the nose, with subtle hints of caramel and brown sugar. There was plenty of fruit in the flavor, but everything came together nicely. There were definite flavors of sweet black cherry and caramel, as well as the pepper from the earlier ports. A slight astringency keeps this port from being too rich—in fact, we found it somewhat cleansing and refreshing, which is unusual for a fortified wine like port. This, too, would be an excellent follow-up to a heavy meal, and would probably pair beautifully with any number of fruit, chocolate, or nut-based desserts.