For The Love Of Port

Thanks Peter - I've no idea why you were not able to PM me
I've PM'd you, and created & shared a dropbox folder with you, so hopefully that will all work smoothly.

Thanks Eric; I'm happy to receive any number of images, large or small, all appreciated. At the moment I'm focussed on bottles, labels and capsules, though possible extensions include corks and OWCs; I have a fair number of cork images already (indexed) and am happy to be sent OWC images also, thoug...

I have created a new feature on my personal website which may be of interest, and I hope could grow to be a useful resource; It is a gallery of vintage port bottles, labels, capsules and bottle details. VP Identification Gallery Initially the web page allows some simple filtering (by house, year ran...

The BFT was certainly an excellent event, in particular some of the tutored tastings were fantastic (more on that another time) as well as providing the opportunity to try a good range of tawnies (though less VPs) in the main room, plus the 2011 VPs. With surprisingly similarity to Derek [shok.gif] ...

I’m thinking of adding another half-dozen bottles over the next few years. Remember, I’m not looking at these for regular drinking, just very special occasions. What would be your suggestions? My current wants list consists of Quinta do Vesuvio 1994 Fonseca 2003 Taylor 2000 If you had to pick anoth...

I still don't understand why this particular tour for the 2nd consecutive year is so difficult to fill, when the other two are approx. 1000 Euros more costly and the only real difference is the level of hotels we stay at. [dash1.gif] Mario joked if we raise the price to the level of the others, it ...

The Making of Port - <this month's aspect> - Rather than the general overview which I expect most readers would be familiar with, I'm thinking about the specific details and how they vary between houses and over history. For example, possible aspects could include: Week 1 : Grapes; types, vines, pi...

Mine would be: $50 - 1996 Fonseca Guimerans SQVP $100 - 1977 Warres VP $250 - 1970 Fonseca VP $500 - 1955 Fonseca VP* $1000 - 1945 Croft VP* *noted that I've not had the opportunity to date to try these last two, but they would be my top "wish to try" bottles in each of those price ranges.

Andy, what would you suggest to put on the label referring to those Ports aging for 10, 20, 30 or 40 years in oak? My preference would be to stay with the words "aged for 30 years" or "aged for at least 30 years" but enforce that bottles with such designations contained only por...

In the UK you can buy them as sterile gauze in boots for a pack of 5 As many of the readership here are not from the UK, I will explain that Boots is the name of a well known pharmacy chain.. Thanks - it would have helped if I had at least capitalised Boots so it was clear it was a brand name/retai...

The one's in the lodge were in individual sealed sterile pouches, but I'm not sure where you can buy them like that. I got some in a bulk pack of 50 - they're very cheap. In the UK you can buy them as sterile gauze in boots for a pack of 5 (which I use all 5 as a single 'sponge' spread out slightly...

Rory, thanks for the detail. It sounds from your description as though bottle 5 (prior to non-ideal storage) was just an unlucky bottle; bottle 6 being poor could be from the less ideal dry conditions (which would mean other bottles may be affected, especially if the light on bottle tops was daily d...

I am lucky enough to have been given a case of Fonseca Finest 19070 Vintage Port about 33 years ago. I have opened and enjoyed 4 bottles very much - unfortunately bottle 5 & 6 were very disappointing - tainted in taste and colour (going very much more orange). There was some transportation duri...

In the newsletter that just hit mailboxes 24 hours ago, there was an announcement about a world wide effort to promote Port, especially using new media, which is EXACTLY what some of our greatest threads in the past six months have been about. So here is an INTERNATIONAL #Port Day effort spurred on...

Warre
Fonseca
Graham
Vesuvio

For me the first three were easy, the last one is harder. I was going to go with Offley (would be my next choice normally) but if we're selecting only four 'forever more' then I'll go with the Vesuvio for the more different character.

This may be a dumb question, but... do we have any reliable information on the fill level at bottling and how much it varies across shippers/years? I sometimes find myself wondering whether a case with all bottle levels the same at only about 5mm in neck with no signs of seepage was simply only fill...

Is this the same Phil W. from a famous offline back in 2005 at which we had Kristin Scott Thomas at the next table at St. John's restaurant? Nope, I'm afraid not. I'm either an all-new Phil W, or a different old Phil W depending on your perspective (and no, I don't know Kristin Scott Thomas, so cou...

Hi Mark, I'm in a similar situation to yourself, but have taken a slightly different approach. The strategy described by TomA and AlexB is good but I think bears some modification for the smaller cellar and also for initial purchasing. The main change I would suggest would be to initially focus a li...

Aside from the ubiquitous steak+VP, I had chilli and a Fonseca 2005 LBV which went together very well recently. (I should admit that I'm not generally an LBV fan, so this might have only been good because it masked the aspect of the LBV that I normally don't like, but I enjoyed it enough to repeat i...

Hi all, Having been around on another (primarily UK) board I thought I'd say hello here too, especially having met a few of the US-based people at recent tastings in London. I've enjoyed port for a long time, with current favourites being Warre 77 and Fonseca 70 (and generally being a Warre/Fonseca/...