For The Love Of Port

I absolutely love the wax-seal. First of all it more or less gurantees an airtight bottle, second it adds a whole lot to the ritual of drinking a port. I don't drink enough "sealed" port for it to really become a problem, but I don't have any actual problems with getting off the wax - hone...

Hi Mario.

That sounds swell. I'm getting very exited about meeting all you guys and having a great time.

You consistently refer to the trip as a "3-day" tour. Is the length/duration final or are you just careful not to get our hopes up?

Regards - Nikolaj

Roy, a question: You aim for this trip to begin a week after the Harvest Tour has ended. I was wondering how long harvest takes in Duoro? Does it take weeks and weeks, or is it all over in a couple of days? And secondly, how sure are you, that there's actually going to be a harvest in your Harvest T...

Nikolaj, Great recounting of the story which is fabulous. I assume that he did not mean that "vacation/tourist" wines to apply to Port? No, he doesn't. His Port-essay revolves around an IT-millionaire, a Parker 100 tasting and a bottle of 1900 VP. As the millioniare decides to purchase th...

http://www.bruun-rasmussen.dk/search.do ... =300209382

It's on an auction in Denmark may 6. Looks peculiar - but hey - it's well over 200 years old.

A danish wine critic and editor of the magazine Gastro wrote, a few years back, a small book called "The Worlds 20 greatest wines" which is a collection of 20 essays on wine. He has an interesting (and very funny) anecdote on this exact question. He's on a vacation in Portugal, sitting at ...

Nikolaj, Welcome back to FTLOP! I am not asking you folks to actually plan all of the details of the trip. We do that for you and quite well I might add. What I am hoping to find out is: A. who is interested in coming along? B. what would be more appreciated: a 3 day or 4 day trip? C. What would yo...

This sounds like a fantastic idea, though I'd love to go on one of your... advanced (?) tours someday. The length - 3-4 days - sounds fine to me. Never having been to Portugal or the Duoro I wouldn't know where to start or where to go. I guess your contacts only go so far, or do you know everyone? O...

Eric Ifune wrote:I only filter for fine sediment. I just decant for larger particles. When filtering, I use surgical sponges. Unused ones that is.

Lah-dih-dah ... Your Majesty.

I would always advise against re-corking and there is a good reason that the Port trade does not do this. In your article "The Colheita, Garrafeira and Vintage Ports of Niepoort" from 2004 you write: 1863 Niepoort Colheita - was bottled for the first time in 1972 into demijohns and then b...

I enjoy blind tastings very much. Can be very "dramatic". I'd say that knowing the name of the port can be a tricky thing. Sometimes I get sincerely disappointed - however, if I like it, it may get some more attention and perhaps praise. But I'm not "scared" to critizise a famous...

I was wondering the other day about the adding of aguardente to the fermenting wine making it port. Usually, a port is 20% vol. And usually, the fermenting wine reaches 6% vol. before aguardente is added. However, if the producer decides to add the aguardente when it's reached, say 5% vol., he needs...

If there's any adding of artificial sweetener, I'd imagine they'd stay clear of the raw sugars and syrups. I'd expect them to do what the french do with their VdN's - add grapejuice. That way it's also pretty hard to detect if anyone should be interested in putting it through a spectrometre.

What do you mean by "use sugar"?

The ports are made sweet by adding alcohol, thus stopping fermentation keeping residual sugar in the wine. In that manner of speaking, it's glucose (friut sugar) that's the sweetener in port.

My palate has definitely changed from the fruity (vintage and LBV) style towards the nutty flavors of the (old) tawnies. - And this in a matter of 5-6 years.

I especially notice this sentence: "This can not be a great difference from a colheita 1937 bottling in 2006, but they still exist, because of the process of evolution , one is a oxidation process and the other is a reduction process." He's basically saying, that the colheita 1937 did NOT ...

Hi Roy. It really does sound spectacular. With the risk of breaking the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it"-rule... How much is the trip going to cost (circa)? While I find the trip entrigueing, it also sounds costly (Mind you, I don't say expensive - those are two different things e...

I'm pondering going on a "port-vacation" with my brother early this spring. I've looked at some travel agencies here in Denmark and there's one specializing in portugal. They can taylor-make my trip for me and have an interesting suggestion for a 10 day trip. It goes something like this: 2...

I think it depends on a lot of things. There's the old version of keeping the cork wet. I personally doubt that, as humidity inside the bottle would be rather high, but what do I know. Then there's bottles that are sealed with a lacquer-seal covering the entire top of the bottle rendering it air-tig...

I won't post a TN because it's been so long since I drank it, but a couple of years ago, I tried this wine also. It was rubbish. Slightly better than a standard tawny - perhaps more depth - but still rubbish. I've never touched the 10YO from Pocas since - but I've enjoyed their Colheita 1987. Strang...