Why it works: Cider and port wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41 recipes. Both carry ethyl pentanoate, which smells yeast, fruit. The science ↓
Port Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Combine all ingredients in a large container.
Let the mixture stand for ten days.
If the color is too light, adjust with fine kino or rhatany.
Rack off the liquid and refill the container.
Repeat the process until the color is perfect and the liquid is clear.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Cider + port winetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together41 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl pentanoate (yeast, fruit).
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Cider + grapetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together349 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Port wine + grapetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Cider + spirittop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together26 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Port wine + spirittop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Prepared cider
- Provides the fermentable base and most of the liquid volume for the wine.
- Wild grapes
- Add fruit flavor and natural tannins to the blend.
- Rhatany root
- Adds astringency and red color, which can be adjusted during aging.
- Fine kino
- Adds astringent tannin and deepens the color of the wine.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness and body, balancing the tannins and acidity.
The step that matters
Adjusting the color with kino or rhatany. Tannins from these astringent materials both color and dry the wine, so small additions can shift the result a lot. Adding too much makes it harsh, while too little leaves it pale. Tasting and adjusting in small amounts, then racking to clear the liquid, gives better control.
Swap the grape
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, port wine, sugar, spirit):
- Applefits better
- Figfits better
- Plumfits better
- Grapethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cider, port wine, sugar, spirit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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