For The Love Of Port

Dear Sean, From the photo this looks like a London Bottling of 1945. I opened a bottle that was down to upper shoulder and although the wine was more advanced than previous bottles I had had, the wine was fabulous. It always amazes me how resilient Vintage Port is! I am fan of the 1966, and like it ...

Dear Glenn,
The regulations on grape varieties have just been reviewed and updated.
I will take a look at them and come back to you.
All best,
George

Dear Moses We only really started talking about our Tawnies in the late ‘80s. We had had a run of less good Vintages in the ‘80s and so we started promoting the Sandeman 20 Year Old in San Francisco. Between the quality and the easy to understand proposition (it was 20 years old and yet needed no de...

Dear Derek If I didn’t know better (!?), I would say that behind the scenes you have all decided to “do me in” an launch the three key questions: “beneficio”, “Casa do Douro” and “level of regulation”! Over the last two years the regulations have been reviewed and updated, and the new ones are in th...

Dear Julian, A couple of corrections (I suspect that you got this list from the 100 years of Vintage Port tasting done by the IVP in 2000) 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948(?), 1950, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959(?), 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965(?), 1966, 1967, 1968(?), 1970, 1972(?), 1974(?), 1975, 1977, 1978(...

Dear Andy! What a nice mess you are getting me into! “Strangely, information about this organization is impossible to find.” This reflects the recent history of the Casa do Douro (or at least over the last 20 years! 1) Can you give our readers a very brief history of the Casa do Douro? The Casa do D...

Dear All, Sorry about being “offline”, but between the day job, the computer and the stress of answering some of the questions I have been preparing the answers and only now getting back with them. Like good Port (Sandeman) I hope they were worth waiting for! George Ps. Derek.....it was the computer...

Dear Herman, It is a complicated process, mostly because “education” takes a lot of years and is difficult to measure in the short term. This added to the fact that most “consumers” today don’t have time to “learn” and just want to enjoy has pushed the promotional efforts in other directions. The IV...

Dear Roy, You are always too kind with your words! Personally, I would rather a couple of glasses of Port (Sandeman, of course) to cure my insomnia than reading comments from George Sandeman!!! OK – onto you question. I think that people raise their expectation of wines way beyond the normal boundar...

Eric, Sandeman started as a wine merchant specialising in Port and Sherry (and Madeira) and we are still doing it! 220 years later! We still ship Royal Corregidor, but not the VO Amoroso. My mother is from Jerez and I grew up drinking Sherry. I have a small barrel of bone dry old dry Amontillado in ...

Andy, Douro wines are the original Port wines, and in fact James Forrester was both very supportive of the original Douro wines and critical of fortifying them or stopping their fermentation. I am not a traitor to Port, but we have to recognise that wine making in the Douro has created wines which r...

Dear Alex, Quinta do Seixo, one of Sogrape Vinhos most emblematic quintas, which is a couple of hundred years old, was rebuilt in 2008 and included the tourist visit as part of the winery concept – innovative for the Douro! Currently we are getting around 14,000 visitors a year and growing. In the n...

Dear Ronald The Casa Ferreirinha wines (from Barca Velha to Qta.Leda to Esteva) are the original classic wines of the “new Douro”. There is no doubt that 20 years ago there were very few Douro wines which made the grade and BARCA VELHA is the most emblematic. It is a great step forward that so many ...

Glenn The Sandeman wines for the ‘60s tend to have tannins are slightly firmer making them longer lasting wines, although the wines for the 70’s are pretty good. No doubt there is also an influence of the aging. I have found the recent Sandeman 1963 that I have tasted recently rather hard and, altho...

Andy After 1991 (which we didn’t make!) it was strange to see people drinking the 1994s three years after in 1997 (we had not evolved that much then!). We concluded it was important to make a young drinking Vintage Port which would allow the classic Vintages to mature for 20-30 years. In 1997 we had...

Dear Roy, That’s a great story – I love the idea of squeezing Vintage Port from the cheesecloth! It sure worked! I don’t think I know anyone who has been so publicly faithful to Port as you, and I have to say that I have always enjoyed meeting up with you and am looking forward to doing so for lunch...

Derek, You know that a lot of the reasons that Vintage Port has the quality that it has are due to the vineyards from where the grapes come from. Up to 1970, Sandeman was buying grapes around in the Cima Corgo and making wine at Celeiros. For some reason, in 1970, there was a local management call t...

Dear All, Sorry not to have responded to any of your messages - which I will start doing now - but when I was arriving home last night I tried balancing a case of Casa Ferreirinha ESTEVA (my house red) and three magnums of Casa Ferreinha VINHA GRANDE Magnums (for the upcoming weekend) with my comput...

Dear Andy Thanks for your kind message of congratulations! The Confraria has been ably led by Vito Olazabal (the inimitable!) and now he has handed us the responsibility to take it forward. Definitely there is work underway on the website and it is probable that in the “not too distant” we will make...

Dear Dave, In 2003 Sandeman had become part of the Sogrape Vinhos portfolio, and this family owned company took a different view to the quality approach of these very top wines (look at Barca Velha, made at Casa Ferreirinha as an example), so the grape sourcing was greatly improves with the company’...