Dinner Party Superstar: The Encore Port - Solera #1

City Winery's Port-style dessert wine is rich, rare, and built for the moments at the end of the night that nobody wants to end.

Port has a reputation problem. Somewhere along the way it got filed under "the thing your grandfather kept in a decanter nobody ever touched." That's a shame, because a well-made fortified wine at the right moment is one of the most pleasurable things you can pour. The Encore Port, Solera #1 is City Winery's answer to that missed opportunity, and it is worth your attention.

Seventy-eight cases. That's the entire production of Solera #1. This isn't a wine made to fill a shelf. It's made to mark an occasion, and the occasion it's made for is the one where dinner has wound down, the conversation has gotten good, and nobody is looking for an exit.

What It Is

The Encore is built in the Ruby Port style from Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel grown across California. It was made the traditional way: grapes destemmed, cold soaked for four days, then allowed to ferment naturally until about two-thirds of the sugar had converted. At that point, grape spirits were added directly to the fermenter, which stopped fermentation and locked in the residual sweetness. The wine then spent several years in French oak barrels before bottling.

The "Solera #1" designation tells you something important. Half of this blend was bottled. The other half went back into the barrel to be folded into the next release. That's the Solera method: a living wine, each vintage layered into the last, building depth over time. What's in the bottle now is the first chapter of something longer.

What It Tastes Like

The nose hits immediately and doesn't apologize for it: brown sugar, molasses, and the specific nostalgia of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven. It's the kind of opening that makes people stop mid-sentence.

In the glass, the wine opens to candied plums and dried figs, with baking spices running underneath. The finish is long and unhurried, landing on brandied cherries and a whisper of tobacco. At 18.5% alcohol and 65 g/L residual sugar, it's rich and sweet in the way it should be, with the smooth tannins that come from years in oak keeping everything from tipping into excess.

It drinks like California finally let itself relax. Warm climate, bold fruit, no apologies, good structure underneath.

How to Serve It

Slightly below room temperature is the right call here. Sixty degrees or so. Cooler than you'd serve a big red, warmer than you'd serve a white. A small pour in a proper wine glass gives the aromatics room to open.

The Encore has a 10-year aging window, so if you're buying a bottle now with no particular occasion in mind, it will wait. But it doesn't need to.

What to Pair It With

The obvious pairings are the right ones. Flourless chocolate cake is a natural: the wine's dried fruit and spice amplify the deep cocoa without competing with it. Baklava works for the same reason, the honey and nut sweetness meeting the wine's molasses note in the best possible way.

The more interesting move is to go savory. Smoked brisket or peppery barbecue plays against the wine's sweetness in a way that makes both better. The richness of the meat, the heat of the rub, the smoke: all of it finds a counterweight in the candied plums and baking spices. This is the pairing to pull out when you want to make someone rethink what dessert wine can do.

For a vegetarian table, stuffed mushrooms or a properly spiced eggplant curry hold up well. The earthiness of the mushroom and the warmth of curry spice both have the body to stand across from The Encore without getting swallowed.

The Short List

Flourless chocolate cake or baklava for the dessert course. Smoked brisket or peppery barbecue for something unexpected. Stuffed mushrooms or eggplant curry for a vegetarian table that can hold its own against a fortified wine.

Why It's Worth Knowing About

City Winery makes wine to drink in a room where something is happening. That's the whole point. The Encore Port, Solera #1 was built for the end of the night at that same table, in that same room, after the plates have been cleared and the conversation has moved somewhere that nobody wants to interrupt.

Seventy-eight cases is not very many. The wine will age beautifully for up to a decade, but there is no reason to wait that long for the right night.

The Encore Port, Solera #1 is available now from City Winery. Order online or ask your server the next time you're in.

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