Up the Douro & Quinta Nova

by Miquel Hudin  |  16-01-2018

My mother’s family is of Portuguese descent and to honor this many years ago we opened a bottle of Vintage Port that my grandfather had brought back from Porto. The build up was intense and we gave it all the pomp and circumstance of a hallowed ceremony only to find that once we sampled the wine (even those of us underage were given a taste) few if any were impressed. My recently-departed Great Uncle George absolutely detested it and quickly doused his mouth in his preferred tipple, Budweiser. Despite direct ancestry tying us to the region, we obviously didn’t know shit about Port and my grandfather had been sold something of a skunky, uninteresting vintage of what can otherwise be a fine wine. Ironically, had we been British, I doubt this mistake would have been made or at the very least, we would have known that “vintage” in Port Speak […]