Saignée

A process used to make rosé by drawing pink-colored juice off fermenting red grapes. This process also results in concentrating the remaining red wine since the ratio of skins to juice in the tank is increased when some juice is drawn off.

Vintage Port is:

A. Bottled two to three years after fermentation then aged a long time in the bottle

B. Bottled 10 to 15 years after fermentation and then usually even longer by the ultimate consumer

C. Bottled after it has thrown a sediment

D. Bottled as soon as the governing body in Oporto formally declares it to be a Vintage year

Vintage Ports are first aged just two years in barrel, to round off their powerful edges. Then—and this is the key—they are aged reductively (without oxygen) for a long time in bottle. During bottle aging, the Vintage Port matures slowly, becoming progressively more refined and integrated. A decade’s worth of aging is standard, and several decades used to be fairly common. Indeed, the 1970 Vintage Port is now, nearly fifty years later, considered to be one of the Ports to experience. And Ports from the 1950s are still amazingly lively on the palate. (The 1955 Cockburn’s is one of the most hauntingly luscious wines I have ever tasted or felt…it was sheer silk).

“I began with the desire to create a “First Growth of California.” The plan needed to be clear enough for direction but sufficiently flexible to evolve as we learned. We needed first to identify, capture, and cultivate great land; to assemble a team with a shared vision; to foster a strong culture; and to build a winegrowing domain that could last for centuries.”

—Bill Harlan, proprietor of Harlan Estate, Napa Valley

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