Port is the new pinot noir? Well, .....

I am a teetotaler, by choice. Yet, I suppose it is the information junkie in me that wants to read up on wines, so that I, too, can bullshit when the oenophiles engage in esoteric talk. Thus, I could not pass up the chance to read that "Last month, Portugal’s port wine producers unanimously declared 2007 to be a vintage port." Yes, I can now sit back and BS about what a wonderful year that 2007 was! Ok, I am being sarcastic.

So, what made 2007 such a special year for port? "it had been an unseasonably cool July and August, followed by intense heat in early September."

I think it was a year or so ago, a colleague and her husband returned from Portugal, and she raved about the port there. could she possibly have had port from the previous vintage year, 2003? Maybe I should pass along this article to her. At the same time, I think maybe she is exactly the kind of new customer that the port industry is targeting?

In a February article in Decanter magazine on declining port sales, Francisco de Sousa Ferreira, director of Portuguese wine giant Sogrape, admitted: “We need to reinvent ourselves.”

In theory, this likely means an attempt to convince Americans that port is not just for after-dinner anymore. ... I’ve certainly seen dozens of newspaper and magazine articles explaining “You really don’t need to be an elderly Brit to enjoy port” and that port should be hipper.

Yes, that image of a stiff Brit, or a stiff Brit-wannabe like Frasier, pouring port and talking highfalutin stuff is something that I have always associated with port. And, the reality is that my colleague is not anywhere like that image. If there are, indeed a lot more like my colleague, well, port has quite a few customers that neither the customer nor the industry is aware of!