For The Love Of Port

Matter fact most were less than 13-13.5% for most of Napa's history until the 90's when it got hip to make high alcohol wines. My comment is off the track, but may be interesting. World temperatures have increased over a period of time -- say from 1980 to 2000, bracketing the 90's epoch you quote, ...

"A Port's first duty is to be red," by Ernest Cockburn? I guess those who prefer tawny Port would not like this quote.

I enjoy many of the Ruby Reserves mentioned here but I think it would be doing them a disservice to categorise them as cooking Port. Using the odd splash in an impromptu sauce when it is simply what is available is fine (I've done it with very fine Vintage Port so can't criticise anyone for doing i...

I use the Warre's Warrior Port for making an excellent sauce for grilled lamb chops. I like to drink the Fonseca Bin 27 and the Cockburn's Special Reserve. I sometimes take a bottle of one of those ruby reserves when I am traveling on the road so I have something pleasing to drink in my hotel room.

How does a bottle of filtered, T-corked, LBV Port respond to flying in an unpressurized luggage compartment, for example in a piece of checked luggage? Is there a significant risk of the T-cork being driven out by the pressure differential between the unpressurized luggage bay and the ullage air ins...

Where are we going to get the science and math teachers that will send out the next generation of technically trained innovators? I don't have an answer to that question. But I do have some 'discouraging words' to share. Rightly or wrongly, people make career choices and pursue paths of education b...

I think sports doping is unfortunate. My son is a competitive arm wrestler in the 154 LBS and below weight class. He has twice arm wrestled for the US team at the world arm wrestling competition. My son does not dope and does not like any supplements or additives. He doesn't even like to take prescr...

I wouldn't quite agree with your first sentence. We are "importing" educated people (people with useful skills have a better chance of getting in) but raw intelligence is much the same everywhere. Less a disagreement than a tangential observation. I think that there is a statistical selec...

A very interesting hypothesis. Certainly there are limits to evolution that you've alluded to. Another thought I had pursuant to this hypothesis is that there may well be different limits on intelligence depending on the environment in which one evolves. In an easy environment where obtaining food ...

Pick up this month's Scientific American at the newsstand. It is a single-subject issue on Limits (including evolution and intelligence - which is increasing), and written at a general level. Some fairly interesting stuff. Oh no! That means the aliens MAY have evolved to be much smarter than we are...

It actually is a big deal. Even proof of microbes (now, or even ever in the history of Mars) would add greatly to our understanding of how and when life arises in the universe. It might not impress the general population, but it would be extremely interesting to those who are thinking about such th...

Of course, because Port tastes good! It has a distinctive taste that is generally pretty different from other wines -- the sweetness, the strong alcohol distinguish it from most red wines. At another level, for me, Port fills a drinking niche that other wines do not. All of my other wine drinking in...

Pretty wild. I was born in 1956, which I think was before Sputnik. I watched the take-offs of the first Mercury flights. Now we are landing substantial probes on Mars. Incredible. Having said that, I did not watch the live video feed and don't know much about this other than that the machine is fair...

I understand that a substantial number of bottles of wine are "corked" -- afflicted with TCA. By substantial I'm thinking on the order of 1:100 bottles or 1:1000 bottles. If this general statistic is wrong, please let me know. I'm relying on my memory of having read this somewhere. I have ...

We have long allowed our children to sip our weekend dinner wines. Our oldest, my son who is now 22 years old, rarely took advantage of this opportunity, only sampling when the wine was unusually old -- which didn't happen too often because most of my bottles were not too old. My middle child, my ol...

I voted NO but do not have strong feelings either way. I think Fowler is saying that capitalization is often an arbitrary matter of custom. If I were writing a work of fiction that embedded the phrase "vintage port" I would try to be guided by how this phrase has been treated by others in ...

I cellared a Quinta do Noval 1970 VP from 1981 until 2008. It was quite good.

Yes, it is hypocrytical. So, are the Napa producers OK if I bottle and sell a wine made in Argentina marked "Napa Cabernet Sauvignon" if I clearly mark on the bottle that it is made in Argentina? Of course they aren't OK with that. In the world of Intellectual Property trademarks are known...

I ordered my copy. If it is as good as the various reviews I briefly encountered in researching this, I'm going to have a copy sent to one or more of my Port drinking friends.

I don't think the making of Port is restricted to class A and B vineyards, but the higher ranked vineyards likely get more beneficio allocated to them. Maybe the lower ranked vineyards get a beneficio of zero and are thus logically eliminateed from making Port. I think the location along the Douro -...