Financial Times

How soon is too soon to drink a bottle of vintage Port, wonders JANCIS ROBINSON MW. She says that there is always an assumption that Ports 'start to come into their own from about 20 years old', but Paul Symington tells her that the British need to be 'more adventurous', and he berates the Brits for 'sneering' at Americans who serve vintage Port young. Robinson, who puts 2003 Fonseca and Quinta do Portal as top of her 2003 list, adds: 'Vintage Port, while being impressively concentrated, extremely alcoholic, pretty tannic and deeply coloured, is very sweet. I cannot imagine glugging a bottle of Port with any main course in my culinary vocabulary, and the modern wine drinker seems to have a strange aversion to opening a bottle of something grand and sweet at the end of a meal.'