#drinkport | “The Original U.S. Port Wine Pioneer”

Bartholomew Broadbent is an icon in the wine world. He’s the original Port wine pioneer in the United States who was responsible for making it mainstream nationally in the 1990s.

He's the CEO and Founder of Broadbent Selections, a fine wine importer and distributor that also produces award-winning Madeira, Port, and Portuguese table wines along with other offerings.

He's the ultimate Port wine advocate, and, he happens to live just 10 minutes from me.

Join me for this can’t-miss episode with a true Port wine legend.

Watch and read highlights from our conversation below (edited for clarity).

Q: If you could invite anyone — living or dead — to a dinner party, who would you choose?

A: So if it were a private dinner at Balmoral, I would want to have dinner with the Queen because she's met so many people; she's experienced so much; and she's got a great sense of humor. She drinks and when let loose, she has fun with people who understand her humor.

But I also would like to invite my mother because she had an extremely good sense of humor. She was completely irreverent, and she taught me that it's better to shock than to bore. And she also tasted the greatest wines in the world, because she always went to all my father’s tastings and took down his notes and typed his books. And so she has experience and she's just a great character. She'd be quite surprised and maybe a bit proud of what I've accomplished with my company. So I wish that she were around to know that.

Q: You've been instrumental in popularizing fortified wines in the States — specifically Madeira and Port. How did you do it?

A: When I moved to America in 1986, a ruby Port was about six dollars back then. I would go into a wine shop in say, New York state and go in with my Ports and try and persuade a little wine shop to buy a Port which they're going to try and sell for six dollars. Well, all they knew of Port was pints of domestic stuff that is called Port, but that’s not really Port. It was sold in brown paper bags that bums would buy and drink on the street. That’s what I was up against.

I spent my first week on the job traveling around. I visited three states in one day. I was on the road constantly in America, going around introducing people to Port through tastings, teaching them about it, and setting up distributors — most of whom didn't have Port.

Interestingly, back in 1986, apart from the cheap sort of non-Port wine, the only other people drinking Port were 70-year-old men in their fancy clubs, sitting in stuffed armchairs, sipping on a glass.

But I saw it change completely. It went down to 60-year-old men, and then 50-year-old men. And then it went down to 40-year-old men, and then women started drinking it, and 30 year olds.

I knew Port was going to become mainstream when I was in San Francisco in front of a group of 300 women, between the ages of 21 to 32, called the Spinsters of San Francisco. They were buying Ports to give us Christmas gifts. By 1995, Port was nationwide — it was absolutely everywhere.

Q: You’ve said that you don't trust people who don't drink wine. Why is that?

A: It's kind of like I don't trust people who don't like dogs. If my dog doesn't like someone, there's a problem there. They sense things, which we can't see. And usually, they're right.

Wine is just such a convivial way of spending time — especially Port. Port is the difference between eating and dining. And civilized conversation is always over wine. You don't really have arguments over wine — you have discussions.

Q: Why should more people explore, discover, and drink Port?

A: As I mentioned before, it's the difference between eating and dining. You can go and share a meal with someone, but once you finish your glass of wine that you enjoyed with your meal, then the evening's pretty much over.

As soon as you open Port, the evening is really beginning because it's when the really good conversations start. I'm amazed by how much people do drink when you open Port at a dinner party. That's when fun starts. We must start having fun again. This world has become too serious, too boring, too divided. We want people to come together and port is a good way to do that. Plus it's healthy.

Q: What are your thoughts on the Surgeon General’s suggestion that there should be cancer warning labels on alcohol?

A: We should put them on everything — burgers. Everything can cause cancer pretty much.

I am a huge fan of ingredient labeling on wines because a wine like Chateau Musar would just say fermented grape juice. That's it. Nothing added. But I think we need to know what’s in the bottle, especially those from big commercial wineries.

Cancer from wine though? You'd have to drink so much, you'd be dead from cirrhosis before you got cancer from wine.

Q: What’s your favorite way to enjoy Port?

A: I like being at home or at a dinner party. The advantage of being at home is you're not driving anywhere and you've got many more bottles in the cellar to pull up if you need more. I'm not so keen on enjoying Port in a restaurant because the prices they charge are silly. A friend's dinner party, though? I enjoy that, especially if it's a country house.

The best place of all to drink Port is of course in the Douro Valley at one of the quintas, maybe lying on a lawn watching the shooting stars.

I do like drinking Port and I absolutely do serve it at dinner parties. We need to have more dinner parties, that's the problem.

Q: Walk us through how we should buy Port. Where do we start? Where do we buy it — are we going online or to our local shop? What are we looking for? What should we expect to pay?

A: For a really good Port, you should expect to spend anywhere from $18 and up. A good late bottle vintage or reserve Port is probably going to be around $22-$25.

Remember, wine glasses are very important. The wine glass that you used to see people pouring Port into were tiny little cordial glasses, which were invented for domestic Ports, which were disgusting. You didn't want to drink too much.

Port is a wine, it's not a spirit, so don't put it in a brandy snifter because that just accentuates the smell of the alcohol. It's a wine. A proper Port serving would be three ounces. Put it in a wine glass so you can swirl it around to release the bouquet and smell it like any other wine. And just enjoy drinking it.

Almost all wine shops — good wine shops — have Port. I don't think there are any wine shops these days that wouldn't have any Port. Of course, you should all ask them for Broadbent Port.

You can get it on my website and you can email me and I will pass it to the right person who can help you find it in your location. I’m very happy to do that.

Q: Anything you’d like to share about Port wine with today’s American audience?

A: Don't be scared to try it. It's so delicious.