Pour't Ho!

In an earlier post I w(h)ined about why we were required to name our Methode Portagee* fortified wine something other than "Port." Now I'd like to talk about the rest of it...

This Pour't is made from Touriga Nacional grapes. In the Duoro region of Portugal, these grapes are the main variety used to make Port wines. Touriga Nacional grows small low-yielding clusters, which produces a wine with intense fruit aromas and flavors, as well as some pretty chewy tannins.

But it isn't exactly a wine we are trying to make here. Port wines were invented back in the early 18th century. England and France were at war (as usual, in those days) and no wine was being imported to England from France. Portuguese wines were available but they spoiled during the long voyage. The winemakers learned to fortify the fermenting wine by adding alcohol (as opposed to eight essential vitamins), which arrested the fermentation and preserved the wine. It also made something that was pretty yummy.

You may be familiar with various Port styles such as "Ruby" and "Tawny", as well as Vintage Ports, which are declared as such by the big Port houses only in years in which the fruit is worthy. We declared this fruit to be worthy and therefore this Pour't has been produced in the manner of a Vintage Port. The fruit was picked and partially fermented normally. When the residual sugar reached about 8.5% we added some kick-ass grape brandy which stopped everything. The Pour't then spent twenty months in oak barrels before being bottled.

Speaking of the bottle - we (OK, I) decided to emulate the old style Port bottles with the white paint stenciled letter you used to get before the marketing guys got ahold of the process and put real labels on the bottles. The name Pig Stai** is a reaction to a newsletter article on "silly wine names" by Dan Berger (one of my favorite wine writers) in his April 13, 2006 issue - in which he suggests names like "...Rat Infestation, Bat Guano and the Pig Sty." as potential wine names. Here you go Mr. Berger!

As far as the rest of the label (which can be seen here), I do not have a weird Uncle Gedvard, but my Great Grandfather Gedvard Stai did come to America in the early 20th Century with his sons Aksel and Alf. Gedvard passed away before I was born, so I have no reason to think he was wierd (though I must get my weirdness from somewhere...)

Today the Pig Stai Pour't goes on sale as a pre-release special just for our Twisted Few (wine club) members - just one of the many benefits of joining The Few (and it's not too late!) The Pour't will be available to all starting November 1.

Cheers!

* We have lots of friends of Portuguese descent and they call themselves "Portagee". Please just relax and eat your Linguiça.

** Yes, that really is how you pronounce my last name. Deal with it.

Comments

[Chris Stai]

We recently visited your tasting room in Murphy's. Picked up a few bottles of wine (all were great by the way). We were sad that when we came last month that the Pour't wasn't ready yet. Also we were curious to find out with our unique last name, if we were some how related. But hell, being of Norwegian decent, I could be related to anybody. We have friends with a cabin up that way so we will be back soon to get some Pig Stai Pour't!

[jackee]

i never try Portagee wines. but i want to taste that wine which you write about it.