The Call of Port

Plenty of winemakers hereabouts may craft a barrel or two of port every few years, but no one seems quite as devoted to the fortified wine as Matt and Karen Meyer.

The Meyers, husband and wife, own and operate Meyer Family Cellars in Mendocino County's Yorkville Highlands, a thin strip of appellation along both sides of Highway 128, stretching from Alexander Valley in the southeast to Anderson Valley in the northwest.

``It's taken a long time to establish our port,'' Matt Meyer said, ``but we get a lot of nice compliments. People say it's the best California port, or that they don't like port but absolutely love ours.''

Port is a type of sweet fortified wine. To make it, a grape-based spirit, usually brandy, is added to wine halfway through fermentation. This boosts both the sugar and alcohol levels. Port is then aged in wood barrels for two to 40 or more years.

In Portugal, its ancestral home, traditional red-grape varieties used in the making of port include tinta barroca, tinto cao, tinta roriz, touriga francesa and touriga nacional. White ports also exist, produced in the same manner but reliant on white varietals like malvasia and verdelho.

In America, vintners tend to use home-based varietals, with petite sirah, cabernet and zinfandel most commonly found on the red side, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc on the white.

While port and other fortified and dessert wines have long been popular in Europe, it's been a tougher sell here in America. It wasn't always so.

``Fortified wines easily accounted for a quarter of all California wines over a century ago,'' explained Ken Young, executive director of the newly formed Sweet and Fortified Wine Association.

But after World War II, such wines were more often than not badly made, unceremoniously relegated to brown-bag status. It took post-Prohibition port and dessert wine pioneers in California like Ficklin Vineyards, Quady Winery and Prager Winery & Port Works to patiently change perceptions.

``Wine consumption overall is on the rise and people are rediscovering wines and they like new things,'' said winemaker Peter Prager, whose father founded Prager Winery in St. Helena in 1979. ``A lot of people come in here and say they don't like port and then they end up liking port. Our white port is our fastest growing because it's so different.''

Prager's first-hand experience is backed up by recent sales numbers.

``Growth in dessert wine sales has increased 61 percent in the last five years,'' Young said. ``Port-style wines out of California are the greatest contributor to this increase.''

Prager and other California-based producers have banded together to form the Sweet and Fortified Wine Association, which will hold its first public tasting later this month in Lodi.

``We're trying to educate the public on what these wines are all about,'' Prager said. ``Port's not just to be enjoyed in front of the fireplace on Christmas Day. It actually goes with food -- many savory foods, too, not just desserts.''

While an uptick in interest is all good for the Meyers, their devotion to port is steeped in a much more personal history.

Matt's father, Justin Meyer, was a former Christian Brother who went on to marry, have children and co-found Silver Oak Cellars, a dual Napa/Sonoma-based winery devoted to making 100-percent cabernet sauvignon long-aged in American oak.

Justin died in 2002 at 63. He had recently retired from Silver Oak to concentrate on Meyer Family, with youngest son Matt winemaking by his side.

Now flying solo, Matt felt it important to continue his father's legacy by making port.

``My father had loved port since his days with the Christian Brothers and wanted to make something uniquely American,'' Matt explained. ``He patiently blended vintage after vintage of zinfandel to barrel, and several years later would bottle a small percentage of the blend.''

Matt and Karen follow the same process, so that each release of their port contains a small percentage of the original 1987 port first procured by Justin, remnants of his Christian Brothers days.

``We make it like we make all of our wines,'' Karen explained further, ``in a style that we like to drink. So we pick earlier, we have a higher acid than is typical and because it's got good acidity the sugar is not dominating.''

The zinfandel grapes used for their port come mostly from Mendocino County. The Meyers pick between 24 and 26 Brix, a measurement of sugar content in the grapes. Most table wines are typically picked between 20 and 24 Brix. Because they're picking at lower sugar levels than many other port producers would, they add more brandy to get to the desired alcohol level.

The brandy is alembic-pot distilled and also made from zinfandel. Blended over several vintages, Meyer Family's lush, concentrated port averages eight years of age at release.

``You just have to have an enormous amount of patience because the wonderful thing is it was started so many years ago, so now we have this wonderful aged port -- age distinguishes it,'' said Matt.

And while he recommends pairing it with artisanal blue cheeses and intense chocolate desserts, a glass of Meyer Family port is perhaps best enjoyed with his father's favorite pairing -- a good cigar.

You can reach Staff Writer Virginie Boone at 521-5440 or virginie.boone@pressdemocrat.com.