WTN: Fonseca 20 Year Old Tawny Port

[David M. Bueker]

Some evenings call for Port. Most of the time I fail to take hte call (and regret it), but last night I grabbed a bottle of tawny for after dinner. It was predictably tawny in color (duh!) and showed the traditional nut, dusty fruit and subtle woodsy (though not woody) notes. What it had in addition to the expected that truly caught my attention was a citrus peel/citrus juice edge that gave the wine real life and aromatic as well as palate energy. I've enjoyed many other 20 year tawnies, but this was a brighter and more refreshing version, and that made it even more enjoyable on this evening.

In the old days, before I kept kosher (pre-'84), I used to sell Vina Vista wine, for which I was the winemaker, to a local Liquor Barn. Liquor Barn, owned by Safeway, differentiated itself from the typical liquor stores of the time, by having a tasting bar. On my frequent sales calls to the San Rafael store, I was often granted free tastes, which often turned into hour or 2 sojourns in the company of the buyer, opening bottle after lovely bottle, and it was there that I became enamoured with Fonseca 20 year Tawny, as well as other fine examples of quite old tawnys. The complexity on these wines is remarkable, and while old kosher "port" has a characteristic rancio or oxidized character, this is obviously lacking in the true old wood Ports, thankfully. Unfortunately, most of the people with whom I nowfind myself drinking wine have very little understanding of the nature of old tawny Port. I fell in love with the genre, and I can't for the life of me understand the preference of Vintage Port over old special tawnies. They are different animals, of course, and both deserve a place, but given my druthers, I always find myself drawn in the direction of fine tawny.