Month: December 2019

My own personal great Port experience is comparatively recent. A bottle of Port was given to my son David, every year on his birthday, by a generous Godmother. It was laid down at Berry Bros of London, wine merchants since 1698, until he came of age. She had no idea he would end up in the wine trade and eventually be one of only a handful of Israelis to gain a WSET Diploma. In his late twenties, David sold most of the Ports, via Berry Bros, to allow the purchase of some good Bordeaux and Burgundies, but he kept two of them. One was Warre’s Vintage Port 1977. We drank it in 2014 carefully decanted into one of my grandfather’s cut glass decanters. The wine was amazing, if not sensational. It was so fresh, so exquisitely balanced, that we drank the bottle during a meal and finished it without really being aware of it. Yes, it was sweet, but it was at the same time refreshing.

New Year’s Eve or Sylvester’s is the time for sparkling wine. This is a fast growing sector. Anything with bubbles is considered ‘in’ and increasingly popular, whether it is a wine of sophistication at no little expense, or inexpensive fizz. The broad range covers the whole wine drinking spectrum from connoisseurs to those who like a fun wine with easy drinking sweetness. Champagne, Cava, Prosecco and Lambrusco are the famous sparkling wines that dominate the shelves of the wine shops.