Port's call to the on-trade

By Fiona Sims

The port producers are peeved. While port sales are soaring in the UK off-trade, the on-trade is slipping. "It's like we've become part of the furniture," says Paul Symington. The Symington family owns and runs several of the big port producing and shipping companies, including W&J Graham, Warre and Ca, Dow's Port and Smith Woodhouse & Co. Sitting in his neatly tailored grey suit, pinkie crooked while holding the Goring hotel's bone-china teacup, Symington says: "Look, even in fine hotels like this one, where is the port behind the bar?"

Sales have dropped dramatically in the on-trade. In 1980, it had 40% of port sales, in 1995 it was just 17%. The picture is not the same in the off-trade, where sales, particularly premium port (vintage, LBV, old tawnies, et al) has shot through the roof. Out of a total of one million cases sold last year, 33% were premium port. Supermarkets like Sainsbury's regard port as a highly profitable product which adds a touch of class to their wine departments. "But why isn't this happening in the on-trade?" says Symington, blowing off a bit of steam, "they're just not selling it."

But if sales are so good elsewhere, why worry? "OK, so commercially it's not so vital, but image-wise the on-trade is important to us. It's important for the overall image of port." His theory is that the on-trade no longer knows how to sell port. Apparently, we are not keeping up with our US cousins, who drink it in restaurants by the tanker-load, the fastest-growing market for port globally. "You just have to look at any fine restaurant in North America. There are at least four or five ports, covered in dust, labels a bit scruffy, sitting on the back bar, but prominent, probably already decanted with a layer of nitrogen squirted on the top, ready to go. Diners are amused, and interested. Plus they make substantially more profits from a liqueur than a table wine, but then I think that US restaurants are more commercially-orientated than British restaurants.

"Here, port sits only on the main wine list, and diners don't bother to look at it again at the end of the meal, most restaurateurs certainly don't offer port at the end of a meal. In the US, waiters serve port with all kinds of desserts - especially chocolate - and it's always printed up with the puddings on the dessert menu, along with other dessert wine possibilities. Even the cheese trolley often comes with a bottle of port next to it."

Symington recounts with horror a recent visit to a well-known London restaurant which responded unenthusiastically to his request for a glass of vintage port with a bottle brought up from the cellar, plonked on his table unopened, sediment shaken up nicely by its short journey. A general ignorance in how to serve port is rife, he claims, though he damns the wine scribes who insist on a lot of pomp in decanting a bottle, which only results in terrifying the waiter who will be reluctant to sell the stuff. "Forget the candle, forget the white gloves, forget all the hullabaloo. You need a clean decanter and a steady hand - end of story. Though a good trick is to let the bottle rest for 10 minutes after you've pulled the cork."

And forget the piddling 50ml glass, too, he says. "It should be served in a wine glass - a white wine glass, preferably a 75ml serving - where you can see its true colour and smell the wine properly."

If you're worried about shifting the vintage port once it's been decanted (as it will stay fresh for only three or four days after it's been opened), have an LBV or a bottle of chilled 10-year-old tawny on standby. Both will keep fresh, stoppered, for up to two weeks. "A chilled tawny will raise a few eyebrows," suggests Symington, "and that's what it's all about."