Book Review:
The Port Companion: A Connoisseur’s Guide
written by Godfrey Spence, forward by Bruce Guimaraens
published 1997
This is a small (222 pages) book on Port wines, with lavish color plates on every page, that is both easy reading, and informative. Although it’s an older book published a quarter century ago, much of the material still seems relevant in this sleepy category, although ownership changes likely have contineued. I don’t know anything about the author, beyond what the dust jacket mentions: Spence is a long time merchant, wine educator, author, and port enthusiast. The book reads much faster than its size might imply since there are so many visuals (photos, maps, labels etc.) and its also in a 6 x 8 handbook format; I finished it over a few nights of 45 min or so at a clip.
For me the most useful aspect was clarifying what all the various categories really were; basically I only understood what vintage and LBV were, and generally didn’t explore other types over the years. This helps clear up Colheitas and Crusteds and all that. The typical mass market store only has a few at hand, so unless one had some motivation, they would not even realize all the other types available, even in far off markets like mine. For select estates the author explains the differences between the VP, similar sounding names, and the single quinta offerings. (Fonseca seemed more confusing than peers to me, for example) Having some history to go with this helps, since in some cases it can be a dozen years since an offering was last released of some type.
Spence leads off with a history of the region and wine making nuances specific to the area, and fortified wood/bottle aged wines. The maps, photographs, illustrations are generally excellent and - if stock - appear to be well chosen and touched up well. They do not seem ‘glommed on’ the way some wine books can appear when prior exposition is just repurposed with random vineyard photos added.
After that, the heart of the book are discussions of 50 prominent shippers and their lineup, along with select tasting notes on what would have been germane in the marketplace circa 1995ish. I don’t get a sense of any super strong opinions from the author (in that this house is ‘bad’ and this one is ‘too expensive’ etc.) but he does convey some broad style overviews i.e. British shippers tend to be gutsy, Portugese ones more elegant and so on. He also usefully gives a guideline on which houses LBV bottlings might be able to age a little, which is something that can be murky to those who are not following the category closely. (I always relied on Squires rule of thumb - look at the cork, if its true cork finished the shipper is giving a cue versus if its bar topped). Other interesting parts of the producer profiles are mentions of their best Quintas as well as an estimate of how much of their grapes are bought in versus homegrown.
Individual profiles typically give some history of each house, what each Quinta’s output typically goes to, and how declared vintages might behave, as well as their frequency. Spence is candid about some houses that he believes are too casual in declaring VP, and their relative lack of ageworthiness. There is also good discussion of how interconnected the various brands are, within their ownership groups. An American consumer confronted by a swath of brands in the Port section of their vendor might only be seeing 2-3 ownership groups, not much different than what happens in the ice cream section of a store. At the end of shipper part, there is another section on prominent Quintas (vineyards) who are now able to bottle up their own wines and export directly, although those may be less known to casual consumers.
There is a lot of content here, opinions seem well considered and tempered, and the color visuals are well synchronized with the writing. Despite the age, it does not feel dated, and would be useful for many casual enthusiasts. I suspect I have under a case of Porto, drinking maybe a couple of bottles per year mostly in the Halloween to New Years time frame, but I enjoyed the book, and endorse it. Of course, for enthusiasts at Roy or Andy’s level of expertise there’s little here new for them, but I assume they already own copies 
Amazon.com Used hardbacks are running $6 on Amazon, perhaps cheaper on eBay. That is not an affiliate link.