The Porro`- Catalonia’s party jug

The physical act of drinking wine is pretty cut and dried, involving lips and tongue and throat. Most people make this “interior” connection with the usual exterior liquid conveyor, the wine glass. But the use of stemware (and even more modest drinking drinking vessels like wooden cups) is a relatively new phenomenon, especially in the countryside.

Prior to the advent of the age of an elegant glass for each drinker, there was the porro` (this is the Catalan spelling - it is called a “porron” in Castilian Spain. The porro` is however more closely associated with Catalonia than Castile). The porro` is in short, a decanter with a spout that narrows to a very thin hole out of which the wine is poured. But the porro` and the glass never meet. No, the porro` has a relationship only with a drinker’s hand, a drinker’s mouth, and the air in between. Here’s how it works…Raise the filled porro` to mouth-level. Draw it to within a few inches or so of your mouth. Open your yapper and tip the porro` until you feel the stream hitting your tongue. Now, slowly draw the porro’ up and away from your mouth as you look up to watch and continue to guide the stream into your mouth. To complete the dram, while still keeping an eye or two on the stream, draw the porro` back to the starting point and level the porro` to stop the pour. There’s no real practical reason to draw the porro` further and further away from the mouth other than to test one’s skills at doing so, and giving one’s drinking buddies the opprtunity to laugh at you if and when you squirt yourself in the eye or stain your shirt.

And there’s an added and perhaps unforseen problem in quaffing wine from a porro` - SWALLOWING…think about it - one has to decide if one big mouthful of wine is enough (the completion of which one must anticipate, and then also quickly complete the pour to avoid overfilling the mouth and wearing the wine) or if one can continue to pour and effect multiple swallows without completely closing one’s mouth (which also will clearly cause you to stain your clothes).

It seems pretty clear that the practical reasons for employing a porro` are few to none, but in the right setting, with the right folks around, it definitely promotes a sense of both comeraderie as well as plain old good fun…that, and it gets you drunk really fast…Porros are not easy to find, but if the idea of all this intrigues you no end, you can pick up one here . SALUD!

TOM CIOCCO