We love port wine, always have and always will. While I lean toward older tawnies and well aged vintage ports, there are other options such as Ruby and White Port which are worth considering. Port wine is made in many places, although the quintessential ports are from the Douro Valley in Portugal. You can spend a lot on a quality port, but fortunately you can get a lot of the same characteristics even when spending a little. Of course it won’t be quite the same, and the 1977 Messias we opened a few years back will forever live in testament to that. That wine was unbelievable, and also why I don’t follow the current trend of opening vintage port young, to experience the fruit. If I want to experience the fruit I’ll open a bottle of dry red wine from the Douro, made from the same grapes. I’m not sacrificing what a good vintage port will eventually become.
Anyway, this is not about expensive vintage port. It’s about two bottles of very inexpensive wine which drink exceptional well. Here they are:
Wine: Tellu’s Tawny Porto
Winery Location: Douro Valley
Tasted By: Neil & Cheri Date: November 2014
Tasting Notes: Produced by Caves Vale do Rodo, this tawny is still primarily ruby colored with amber at the edges. There are wonderful fruit qualities interspersed with more tawny like aromas and flavors. It’s a young tawny still holding on to its origins. There’s a little caramel and nutty quality starting to emerge. I enjoyed this over almost a two week period. Very tasty stuff here.
Price Point – we’re talking about $10, which is really insane. This is very good.
Would We Buy It? – absolutely, we will definitely buy more of this. I’d be tempted to say it’s the best value, inexpensive port I’ve tried, except for the next wine…..
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Wine: Tellu’s Lagrima Porto
Winery Location: Douro Valley
Tasted By: Neil & Cheri Date: December 2014
Tasting Notes: – this is a white port from the same producer, and that’s not something you see a lot of. Too bad, because this wine is really fabulous. Not really “white” it sports a beautiful, salmon tinged, golden color. Not super sweet I would describe it as off dry. There’s a silky smooth complexity to the wine, and if I had to say what it reminds me of most I would say an old vintage port. That’s quite a compliment considering the price of this bad boy. As much as I liked the tawny this is better, and off the charts good for the money.
Price Point – also about $10, which is really quite insane.
Would We Buy It? – we will, guaranteed. I suggest you do also.
So there are two options if you want to have some port lying around for the holidays, or anytime for that matter. These are dirt cheap, but they over deliver in every conceivable way. Very delicious and crazy good values. They almost need their own value list, but we only have one so on it they go. We have the Tellu’s Ruby Porto as well, but haven’t opened it yet. I am expecting great things.
A votre sante!
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