Storing and Drinking Vintage Port

To make the best out of a bottle of Vintage Port one must be very careful in handling the bottle. This complies both to the storing of the bottle, knowing when to drink it and how to decant it properly.

Storing

There are now absolute rules of how you store a Vintage Port perfectly but there are some factors one must consider. The most perfect place to store the bottle is of course in a wine cellar. Dark, cold and humid that is. But as collector's in the 1940s often said, according to J:C: Valente-Perfeito in his book Let's Talk About Port, "A wine cellar too hot or too cold murders the wine before it is old." The optimum temperature is 12 to 16 degrees Celcius (55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit). Temperaturs higher than this can be tolerated for shorter periods. More important than the temparture itself is the variation in temperature. Large fluctuations can dry out the cork and damage the wine.

To prevent the cork from drying out the humidity should be around 50 percent in the cellar. Placing a container of water in the cellar might just do the trick for those of you living in a dry place.

Since most homes today don't have any cellar, these conditions can be very hard to live up to. For those of you that don't have any other options a closet might do fine. I myself keep all of my Vintage Ports in a closet. It is dark and the humidity is about right but of course the temperature is a bit too high. This causes the wines to mature faster than they would do in a perfect cellar. Something I take under consideration when planning to drink the wines. A Vintage Port normally would take 15 to 25 years to mature but in my closet I get a sort of turbo maturing, making the Vintages perfect after maybe 10 to 20 years instead.

No matter were you decide to store your bottles, always remind that they must be stored on their sides. This is to prevent the cork from drying out but also to let the sedimentation in the bottle settle in one side of the bottle so that it is not whirled around when you open the bottle and decant it.

Drinking

One of the most difficult decisions with Vintage Port is when to drink it. Some people like the taste of a young Vintage when others want theirs mature and rounded off by a couple of decades. I myself prefer a well matured Vintage with perhaps 20 years in the bottle above a Vintage only 4 or 6 years old. This is something for everyone to decide for themself. There is no wrong or right about this but of course there also comes a time for a wine when it becomes too old so don't wait too long if you are uncertain. A rule of thumb can however be to drink a Vintage port at about 15 to 25 years old. Some keeps longer some matures faster.

Before drinking a Vintage Port the bottle should be raised. This should be done a couple of days before decanting and drinking so that the sediments reaches the bottom of the bottle. If you have stored the Vintage on its side (of course you have, since I told you to do so above) dont twirl around the bottle, instead try to remember which side it was lying on so that you can keep that side down when decanting. In this way you will get all the sediments in the bottom, downside of the bottle minimizing the sediments in your decanted wine.

Decanting the wine can be a bit tricky the first time you do it. There are special Port filters available to stop the sediments from following the port to the caraff but there are other ways of doing this. A towel or a regular melitta filter will do. Keep a candle or a flashlight under the bottle when you decant it. By doing so you can see when the thick porridge like sediment reaches the bottle-neck and it is time to stop pooring. If you don't have a caraff to decant into, an old bottle will do just fine. The important thing is to get a clear Vintage Port without much of the sediments. Normally, about five centiliters of sediments are left in the bottle. Sometimes more sometimes less. The amount does not have anything at all to do with the quality of the wine.