Resurrecting the great British port habit

It seems a pity port has accumulated so much baggage that the general perception is that it is drunk only by gouty naval officers toasting the Queen or in the sort of gentlemen's clubs where ladies aren't to be seen.

Is port destined to be drunk with the same frequency as church attendance for most practitioners – once or twice a year plus births, marriages and deaths? Practically invented by British wine merchants, port is now drunk more in France than in the UK.

It is a sad decline for a seriously sophisticated and pleasurable drink. Port is a fortified wine, which means brandy is added shortly after fermentation, maintaining the sweetness and leading to an alcohol level of about 20 per cent.

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About one per cent of port imports to the UK are vintage bottles, which take decades to mature and develop the rich fruitcake/raisin overtones that make it so delicious and can cost upwards of £60. The handful of famous port-makers declare vintages on average only three times a decade, but there are excellent alternatives, ranging from single-quinta vintages to the much more reasonably priced tawny or ruby ports.

As few restaurant-goers want to purchase an entire bottle of port to end a meal, some restaurants, such as Noble Rot in London's Bloomsbury, sell top-of-the-range vintages such as Fonseca 1977 by the glass.

Noble Rot's co-founder Mark Andrew believes vintage port is one of the most complex wines you can find. "The days when you could open a bottle over lunch are long gone, but this is a great way to have a conversation with them," he says. "We also have, for considerably less, great alternatives such as Quinta do Noval LBV [late bottled vintage] Port, which never hang around for long."

Mark Symonds, the associate director of marketing for Fells, the UK's leading importer of quality port, says his "mission in life is to open people's eyes to what they are missing".

He adds: "It is a lovely relaxing hand-crafted drink and has a great future as an alternative to spirits."

It is hard to imagine that a few generations back, the done thing for a gentleman was to lay down a pipe of vintage port, which translates into nearly 800 bottles, on the birth of a son. Times have changed so much that one of the leading British port merchants can’t recall the last time they had such an order, but they now offer a Vintage Port Bond for a rather more modest six bottles.

BRUCE PALLING is our editor for The Week's Wine Club, where we offer you a serious range of the most interesting drinking wines from a handful of Britain’s most reliable - and innovative - merchants.