About 20 or 25 years ago, producers of vintage port – made in Portugal’s Douro Valley – faced a crisis: Their sweet, intense, fortified, long-lived after-dinner wines, prestigious, rare and costly, were falling out of favor. How, the question was, could these primarily family-owned concerns continue making vintage port and still make profits?

The answer, it turned out, was easy: divert some of the same grapes used in making port toward the purpose of making red table wines. Now, scarcely a port house exists that doesn’t offer, in addition to a variety of traditional ports, a line of table wines that ranges from cheap and accessible to high-toned and expensive.

The larger-than-life Dirk van der Niepoort – trust me; I spent several days in his company in the Douro Valley a year ago – was a pioneer in this effort, both as brilliant winemaker and marketing genius. The family came to the Douro from Holland in 1842; Dirk Niepoort took over the firm in 1987.

Among the Niepoort table wines is one called Twisted; this vintage, 2007, is the second produced. The wine is made from such typical port grapes as touriga franca, tinta roriz, touriga nacional, tinta amarela and tinta barroca. No cabernet or merlot here, friends!

Twisted 2007 sports a lovely, limpid, medium ruby-magenta color. Aromas of red and black currants, cherries and mulberries waft from the glass, while in the mouth, the wine offers super-attractive weight and a slightly velvety texture to support juicy and spicy red and black fruit flavors. A few minutes reveal touches of briers and brambles, layers of slate-like minerality and a foundation of mildly dusty tannins. Have some pork chops that need grilling? Burgers? A robust pizza? This is your wine.

For more about wine, check out Koeppel's blog at http://www.biggerthanyourhead.net.