Port is not the trendiest wine category. A lot of wine aficionados have either passed it by or don’t care to put in the work to understand it, but not me: Port is vitally important, utterly fascinating wine, and not just because my first-ever wine job was working a harvest in the Douro Valley of Portugal.

For one thing, it’s not much work to get a handle on Port: These are wines that are “fortified” with a small amount of grape spirit (brandy) during fermentation and either bottled up immediately or aged in oak barrels for an extended period before bottling. Originally, this practice was done to fortify the wines for long journeys around the world, rolling around in barrels in the hot hulls of ships. These days, it’s done to produce some of the longest-aging wines on earth, wines that can go 40, 50 years with ease—and remain intact and full of vigor months after being opened. Today’s library-release treasure comes to us from Kopke, an acknowledged master of the Tawny (i.e. wood-aged) style. This is a colheita Tawny, meaning it is the product of a single vintage, 1978, rather than a melding of several. For me, it epitomizes the best of Port wine by bringing all the beguiling, savory, “secondary” aromas of mature red wine to the table. Decades of slow aging in oak—it was just bottled this year!—has tempered its sweetness considerably, almost to the point where it reads as dry, and the cacophony of fruits, nuts, spices, and flowers seems as if it were concocted from more than just grapes. But no, it’s just grapes. Grapes and time. And, best of all, you don’t have to finish it in one sitting. You can go back to it repeatedly over several months, as I have. When you factor that in, this may be the best aged-wine value there is. Don’t let it pass you by!

Kopke’s 1978 Colheita combines four traditional grapes of the Douro: Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Barroca. The vines climb up to 600 meters and live in a mineral dream of schist, sandstone, and granite. Fermentation takes place in traditional granite vessels called lagares. When the right amount of sugar converts to alcohol, grape brandy is added to halt fermentation, leaving behind residual sweetness. The grapes are blended and moved to cask for seven years, minimum. Some, however, stay in there much, much longer—today's batch spent over 40 years in barrel!

When storing the bottle, keep it in a cool dark place, away from light and temperature fluctuations. We suggest storing it upright for a few days to settle the natural sediment in the wine, and, after it has been opened, re-cork it tightly, store it in a cool, dark, place, and it will remain sound and enjoyable for several months before starting a gradual decline. A narrow white wine glass is perfectly fine if you don’t have a proper Port glass. Due to its age, forgo the shock of decanting and let the wine unravel on its own. The wine is vividly amber with reddish caramel undertones and displays an immediate comfort in richness on the nose. There’s a warm welcome of dried fig and cherry, preserved orange, burnt sugar, toasted and salted hazelnuts, and melty butterscotch. The wine is persistent, wide and moving with toffee, pipe tobacco, cocoa, crushed rock, and Christmas spice. The sweetness is not cloying; in fact, it is very delicate at this point in the wine’s life, meaning the wine need not be relegated solely to “dessert” status (although it is magical with a hunk of dark chocolate). It would pair beautifully with an assortment of cheeses with some Marcona almonds, honey, and dates, or you might even plug it in with a savory course early in a meal, like a terrine. There’s so much going on here, you won’t be disappointed. Cheers!