I’m going to start off by saying that I am not a fan of drinking Port. It’s not my style and it’s not something my palate is accustomed to having grown up in a family that is Hell bent on medium-bodied dry red wines, but the pairing of both this specific wine and cigars is one that has been around for generations. 

       Thanks to the success of my first three pairing articles on Stogie Review, I’ve decided based on questions and comments that so many people are curious about Port and therefore I’d step up and write yet another article making all of you think I’m probably an alcoholic. (Ha….)

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        Port is known by a variety of monikers depending on what languages you speak, but no matter what you call it, it is a fortified wine from Portugal’s Douro Valley. For all of you that are not total wine geeks, here’s some trivia you can throw out at your friends the next time you’re dining and talking after-dinner drinks: fortified wine is simply a wine to which a distilled beverage has been added before the fermentation process is complete, therefore killing the yeast and leaving behind a sizeable amount of sugar (and much more alcohol than that bottle of Chianti you polished off earlier during your primi piatti).

         Commonly served as a dessert wine, Ports are thicker, richer, sweeter, heavier and with an alcohol content of around 20%. Although Ports are being made in other parts of the world now, purists will tell you the real stuff of course comes from Portugal and it can be divided into two generic categories:

•  Wines that have matured in sealed glass bottles, with no exposure to air, and experience what is known as “reductive” aging. This process leads to the wine losing its colour quite slowly, resulting in more smoothness on the palate and being less tannic.
• Wines that have matured in wooden barrels, whose permeability allows a small amount of exposure to oxygen, experiencing what is known as “oxidative” aging. They too lose colour, but at a much faster pace. If red grapes are used, in time the redness lightens to a tawny colour – these are known as Tawny (or sometimes Wood) ports. They also lose volume to evaporation, leaving behind a wine that is slightly more viscous and intense in delivery.

           I think what might be the best way to go is to provide all of you with the most simple rule of all when it comes to pairing Ports with a cigar: since Port wine is naturally quite sweet, do yourself a favour and avoid smoking anything light/sweet because you won’t be able to enjoy it once the thick wine coats your palate. Honestly, grab a medium- to full-bodied cigar that not only has fairly prominent spice notes, but is balanced with woodsy essences. Remember that many maduro cigars also have some bittersweet chocolate and dark coffee notes to them as well and this allows the Port to work with the cigar and not against it, providing your palate with a very well-rounded flavour profile and therefore experience.  

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       Everyone laughs when I tell them this little anecdote, but part of the reason why some consider cigars and Port a  natural pairing is due to one name: Fonseca. This story is like trying to figure out which came first with respect to the chicken and the egg since there is no paperwork authenticating one or the other, but the Portugese Fonsecas are heralded for their wine, while next door the Spanish Fonsecas are known for cigar tobacco. No one knows which technically came first and it’s a point of contention for both countries (in polite conversation, of course.) 

       Although Ports are not for everyone, if you’re at all curious because you’ve never tried, go for it and grab a nice cigar based on my simple guidelines above and hopefully you will enjoy an entirely new experience!