Port and Books: Dow’s 2011 Late Bottled Vintage Porto

Recently, Camestros Felapton shared some beer/book pairings as part of the Blog Challenge Project. I’ve wanted to do something similar in the past for beer or tea, but given that we’re still in a pandemic of uncertain conclusion, my beer and tea access is relatively limited. Small town and all.

And so I turn to another alcoholic beverage I rather enjoy and almost never talk about: port! What books go with port? Well, that depends on the port, I suppose!

Today’s port is Dow’s 2011 Late Bottled Vintage Porto, which, like all ports, sounds fancier than it probably is. (I will preface all of this with the fact that I am not a fancy pants alcohol consumer or reviewer. I know maybe 3 or 4 fancy terms, but mostly I just care if something tastes good.)

Here goes:

Given that I’m a heathen and have absolutely no cares for the legitimacy of my alcohol consumption — thus having never become one of those scotch drinkers you hear about — I will have some rather unsophisticated words to say about this rather, uh, meaty(?) port!

As a port drinker, I’ll admit that I tend to lean towards the tart or sweet ends of the scale, in part because I don’t like wine all that much and the more full bodied the port, the more wine-like it becomes. Dow’s 2011 LBV leans a bit strongly into that “full bodied” taste. Or, as I might put it, it has a deep flavor profile that almost feels thick in the mouth. That makes it quite suitable for sipping, but it also makes it much closer to the aspects of wine that I don’t like. Still, some of that delightful prune-ishness comes through, and it is relatively smooth with a good touch of sweet and tart. I just want…more sweet or more tart. I am a heathen. 3.75/5!

The big question is this: what books would I pair with this strong and rather serious port? Turns out I’m in a bit of an apocalyptic mood. Serious drink + apocalyptic mood = some mad serious books. Here’s what I got:

Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo

I had the great fortune to read this graphic novel during my graduate studies. It chronicles Okubo’s experiences as an internee in the Japanese relocation camps (i.e. U.S. concentration camps) in California and Utah. The book is not as dark as you might expect given the subject matter, which might explain why it had such an impact on me when I first read it. It doesn’t pull punches, but it also tries to show how people survive in adversity.

If you are interested in Japanese internment in the U.S., I strongly recommend perusing Densho, a digital archive of materials about the camps and the people in them. To me, the archive is a necessary and bitter reminder of what this country did in the service of fear and racism.

Combined and Uneven Apocalpyse by Evan Calder Williams

Fun fact: Williams was one of my TAs at UC Santa Cruz back before the dark times. Before the Empire!

This is a hell of a book to read, especially now. Williams makes a fascinating and philosophical case for the apocalyptic undercurrent of our society, both in the films we watch, the political movements across the globe, and the seemingly endless impact of late stage capitalism. It’s a pretty terrifying picture, but what makes it more important than ever is how almost prophetic his interpretation is. This book came out in 2011! Now look where we are?

I actually want to pick his brain about this book one day. Because all of the things he discusses here as part of his Salvagepunk aestheticism and apocalyptic imagining seems to be coming true. Maybe not as he envisioned it exactly (this book not being truly prophetic), but certainly in ways that make this book unfairly underrated.

And that is where I shall leave you, today. With two books on fairly dark subjects that are both incredible and fascinating and perfect fits for a robust port from 2011!

What are you reading?