Rethinking Port Wine at Churchill’s: This is your brain on Port Wine

There was a  prevailing theme at Port Wine Day 2016 in Porto this year —how do we influence younger wine drinkers to want to drink Port wines? Johnny Graham, owner of the dynamic Churchill’s Port, wants us to rethink port wine and got literal!

His team imagined what your brain might look like on Port and came up with an innovative way to show it. A team of neuroscientists, musicians, and visual artists collaborated on a brain-wave visualization and sonification program as the centerpiece of their pre-Opening party for Port Wine Day.

Churchill's visitors center is situated overlooking the river with terraced lawns and stunning views. What a great place for a party to kick off a wonderful wine weekend in Porto!

Guests lined up (of course, I did it!) to don a simple brain scanning apparatus that connected to the system. We then were given 3 blind tastes of Churchill’s Port in succession.
(White, 10-year Tawny, and Reserve Port) and our engagement was measured with EEG data which, in turn, was turned into sound with audio software. Data then was fed to the visual team who mapped projections in sync with the audio. How busy the audio and visuals was supposed to indicate your preference. For me, the wizard picked White Port, because my brain had more activity when I tried it. Pretty sure the Tawny was my real preference! 

 

No need to dissect the science. As an art piece, it was pretty successful and certainly a really fun way to spend the evening. 

 

Johnny Graham spent a good chunk of the evening with my lovely wife and me, chatting about his incredible family history and his place in the Port world as the “newest” Port on the block, founded in 1981 as the first new British Port house in 50 years. You certainly know his family name, Graham, as one of the finest Port houses, which his family sold to the Symington family back in 1970.

 

Churchill’s wants to be known as a company young at heart, using modern sustainability practices when they can, but want their wines to reflect both freshness and heritage, so they still produce wines in traditional lagares (granite or steel foot-treading crushing vessels) to get maximum skin/juice content and color extraction with our crushing the pips. Both ports and some great still wines (non-Ports) are produced at Quinta da Gricha – a 50 hectare (124 acres) Vineyard estate in the Cima Corgo sub-region. 

 

All of the wines were exceptional, but a few stood out. The White Port Aperitif is aged 10 years and is a great light cocktail-hour wine either straight or made into a Porto Tonico. The 20 Year Tawny and 30 Year Tawny wines are highly recommended, the 20 being a mature but still fresh and off-dry, the 30 showing more cigar-box scents and slightly dryer impression. Churchill's also makes Crusted Ports, currently offering the 2005. Crusted ports are often a blend of more than one vintage, aged a bit in wood, then aged in the bottle - unfiltered, so a crust develops on the side of the bottle, like a vintage port.