Rob,
Thanks for the great introduction and again to FTLOP! It is always great to have someone join us who works in the wine industry. I must admit I don't think I've ever had a wine from your region before Hopefully you can point us in the right direction in which ones to seek out and try.
Oh, and you should worry, this group is very good at getting people to spend lots of money buying Port
I have interacted with Roy on other boards for a few years, and he recently invited me to sign up and become a member here, which I am very pleased to do.
I notice that many new members start with a little introduction about themselves, so I'll join that club.
I was introduced to Vintage Port in 1985, when I first visited my thesis advisors home when I was a grad student at Stanford. After dinner that night he asked if I wanted a glass of port, and like all of us who have had no exposure to port, I said, gee.. no thanks. Anyway, we climbed under his house, and he pulled out box after box of old ports, all with original price stickers. There were 55's, 60's, 63's and more recent vintages. Needless to say, I was hooked as we drank a 63 Taylor together.
I bought a lot of ports in the 80's, at that time the 63's were $45 to $50, and the 70's and 77's were less than $30. Five years later, my home burnt down, and I lost my entire first collection that must have numbered 25 old bottles. As the ashes cooled from the house fire, I found my wine collection, and one of the only bottles that didn't break open from the heat was a 1963 Fonseca. As I picked it up, the bottle was still hot to the touch, the cork was 3/4 pushed out, but a finer bottle of warm 63 Fonseca was never drunk - out of the hot bottle, no less.
Since then I have continued to collect and drink Port, perhaps not as much as when I was younger (scored a 1920 Taylors this AM ) . I find I am incredibly sensitive to sweet alcoholic beverages, and if I have more than a glass or two these days I really notice it the next day.
My two favorite older wines are the 1927 Fonseca and the 1948 Grahams. My favorite younger wines are the 1966 Fonseca and the 1970 Taylor.
I look forward to participating in this forum, thanks for the invite Roy!
I've been interested in wine approximately 15 years. Due to poor storage facilities, I have earlier mainly been buying wine for consumption.
After moving into a house with a cellar suitable for wine storage a few years ago, I started collecting.
It's fair to say I'm on my way down the "slippery slope".
I live in Sandefjord, Norway.
A few years back I was unlucky to get a disabling neurologic disease. The only positive side of this disease is that I now have plenty of time to focus on my wine passion.
My main focus areas are Vintage ports, Rhone valley and Piedmont reds.
Looking forward to learn and share experiences on this site.
Welcome to Sorry about the house fire, but glad to see you didn't let it stop your passion for wine. I love the story of crawling under the house! My first real VP was a Taylor's 1966, then a 1970 after that. It was those two bottles that hooked me into this passion for all things Port and Portugal. So to hear about your '63 Taylors gave me a good chuckle. I hope you have fun here and I look forward to reading more posts from you.
Joined FTLOP a few days ago, hoping to learn and share good experiences in our shared passion.
I remember my dad, always talked about the port he drank when he was young, not for the love of it, but more to get drunk. And with that I mind, I jumped into the port world when a student buddy of mine, asked if we wanted to clear the cellar for port in the local supermarket (with a really good discount), where he worked.
Feuerheerd 1982 for 15 dollars (in today’s currency). It was nice, had the “expensive” sediment, and we got drunk, and felt older and more important.
As the years passed, Bordeaux and then Italy came into mind, until we (a new fellow student and me) went to a port-festival.
5 years ago I became member of the vintage port club Denmark, and have been boardmember for almost 3½ years now. (we are limited to 50 members, and have about 15 hangarounds in addition).
My next tasting in the club are with 4 different ports: Fonseca 1963, Grahams 1970, Warre 1985 and Quarles Harries 1997. 3 bottles of each, opened 36, 12 and ½ hours before tasting. But first we are going to taste 1980´s in January
My favourite house is Fonseca with the 1970 at the top. I Like Grahams Old, Warre´s when they are middle-aged and tawny´s and Colheita´s fresh from the cask.
I grew up in Bayside, Queens and spent lots of time also in Huntington LI. Back in the 1960s my parents took us to both the No. Fork and So. Fork and we eventually had a place in Southold where we used to dig for clams and easily found scallops all over the place, not to mention the occasional horseshoe crab. Ahh the good old days.
As a mid-late teenager in the 1970s, I remember visiting Pindar and Hargrave with my parents that were definitely not wine drinkers but let my brother and I smell the wine and grape juice was promptly poured for us. Are those two still alive and kicking?
I then worked at a wine shop in Douglaston, during my last two years of HS as an "interested stockboy" and the owner's son took me under his wing and after closing would allow me to taste some fine wines in a private tasting room. I thought this was pretty cool, although underage, it was about the taste not the buzz and I learned about German Riesling and Burgundy which were pretty much the extent of our imports beyond the big production end cap names from Italy and Portugal (Corvo, Mateus and Lancers in those days). Some wine did came from LI and the vast majority was from CA in gallon and half gallon jugs. I remember when Almaden made its splash in those glass decanter/bottles.
Thanks for joining us here and we look forward to your winemaking perspectives to shed some light on issues that us regular folk don't know all that much about. Did you grow up in Suffolk Cty.?
Ports - Rhone - Piedmont ... what a nice way to stay focused.
Glad to have yet another Norwegian here!
You know, I have been trying to convince a long time Port loving online friend, Symon from Ireland to join us here, because he had a ery accident too and is now dyslexic. He knows a LOT about POrt and I have encouraged him to come and join us and I this will give him the courage to do so. For that I thank you tremendoustly!
I look forward to your participation and appreciate this very sensitive introduction!
hi my name is symon i live in limerick just moved from the english lake district i had a seriouse car crash 20 years ago and have dyslexia have 3 children and a lovely wife i fell in love with port when a friend from doylestown pa james mcknight of mcknight smoked salmon inc gave me a btl of ware 63 18ys ago it was lovely since then iv been fortunate to have drank 45 t 48f and t 63f 63 g 48g
34 kop 50s 51s 55t 58w 70t and g and f 77f 77t 94f etc etc
o and 3csc 85g that laster only 1 year nice port some great memories the 45t and 48t and a 60 qnn was nice but not expencive
i collect port and have some back to 1912 but only buy base of neck ore beter the 1922w must be very rare we have and the 4 mags of our faverite port the blockbuster 1970f but god knows if il ever be able to persuade my wife to drink the onl ports on account of value id like to and would of course let you know of our scorings the 1963 qnn is my bigest ambition to de bottle it seems to get 100pt every time i like ports that will last 50 years plus and still be super the more modern ports seem to be of a diferent breed to the old ways ports from 1970 and before so we like the oldies
i am yet to try the 1994 ports so look forward to it hello to all fellow portlover sy
Hello all,
I am brand new to port, having tried only maybe 10 or 12 different kinds, but I think that one or two was all it took to convince me that I am a port lover. My first port was just a few months ago, one that my brother picked up to have with my chocolate birthday cake. (Six Grapes) I've been hooked ever since.
I'm pleased to have the opportunity to learn from all of you port aficionados, and I look forward to getting more immersed in the world of port.
Melanie R.
Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused.
Wow, after at least a decade or a dozen years with hundreds of emails back and forth ... FINALLY you have graced our pages with your presence!
We don't have anything bigger than this, so ... to FTLOP. I know you've been loathe to post due to the damage from your accident, but I can assure you that this is a really friendly place and nobody is going to give you a hard time about your writing. It is your devotion to Port over the long haul that we will be most honored to welcome here and your great knowledge of older Ports. So please do feel free to share with us and learn right alongside the rest of us!
It is really nice of you to have provided such an introduction and I am very pleased you've decided to choose to come and spend some time reading, posting, asking questions etc.
This is a very helpful bunch of individuals of all degrees of experience with Port wine. Many like yourself are just starting out or have done so in the past year or two, while others have been drinking ... like Symon, with decades of Port experience. All are welcome here.
I am a big fan of Graham's Six Grapes and wind up drinking it several times every year with friends and some folks who are just looking to try a Port for the first time. It is a great way to see what you like without having to spend a ton of money. I hope you will enjoy your time here and please don't be afraid to ask questions as you'll find the people here knowledgeable and pretty easy to get along with too. Not too much testosterone like most wine BB's and Forum's.
to FTLOP I am glad you signed up. Don't worry about not being very experienced, we're a friendly group so ask as many questions as you like. We are all about sharing information regarding this crazy passion of ours.
Oh and Six Grapes is an excellent bottle and one I've drunk a ton of over the years...the last bottle was about 2 weeks ago.
Bit of an introduction - I'm from London, aged late 20s (all too suddenly) and relatively new as a discriminating (!) port drinker - possibly a good thing as am still at the beginning of my career and therefore only just able to start thinking about the more classic VPs...
What really piqued my interest recently - having gradually become more interested in wine more generally over the last year (and, also, belgian quads) - was a vertical Graham's tasting that i went to at a small boutique chain in London called Jeroboams with Tim Stanley Clarke (a hugely enjoyable host, and apparently a "port ambassador" for the Symington family in the UK, as well as being a proponent of the stocking/tight decanting method).
It was the 63 Grahams that really did it for me - I can count on two hands the number of times when i have had my breath literally taken away by how good something tastes (several other of those times have been steak houses in NY...).
In terms of my experience as a child, port would invariably be of the stopper-seal variety and be kept - along with the whisky, rum and gin - in the sideboard for months on end. I remember the shock when I bought my first Graham's malvedos and had to use a corkscrew! It was for a school leaving party at age 18 and the bottle wasn't very good, as i remember, but then again the time between opening and the bottle being finished was probably at most 10 minutes and we drank from those awful port snifters (somewhat like v-shaped shot glasses on a stem) which probably didn't help!
Anyway, I thought the best way to introduce myself would be to give my contribution on a few ports and a few of the other threads that i enjoyed reading before signing on:
Recent VP buys:
single bottles of Graham '66, Cockburn '67, Graham/ Fonseca/ Taylor '70 (for a horizontal I'm planning to "evangelise" some friends), Gould Campbell '77, Dow 83, and Niepoort '97 - all to get the collection started but none drunk so far.
Others in portfolio:
Case of Dow '80 which was given as a baptism present (my dad did the best he could in terms of storage until buying a Eurocave in late 90s, so we'll have to see!). Sandeman '63 that my dad has bequeathed.
General drinking (VP beyond resources at the moment for this):
Have really enjoyed the Noval LBV 2003 (88), Niepoort 2003 LBV (89), and Dow 2002 crusted (BBR edition) (90+). Taylor's 20 (92 - though last couple of bottles seem to have been much more sweet and one-dimensional than from memory and therefore far from that scoring), Taylor's 10 (89 - much better value based on last examples imho), and Warre's Otima 10 (89). (for scoring reference: Graham '63 (97), Graham '70 (94 - 95), Graham '77 (91), Graham '80 (92+).
As i write:
Quinta do Infantado lbv 2004
light nose, good (but unspectacular) mouthfeel, moving into a pleasant ainseed finish, bit of pepper and warming sweetness, just not quite enough...almost a reminder of some of the better ports i have had but just falling short. Aftertaste is short and turns a bit disappointing - quite sticky after a while actually. Nice label. Good to try, but not re-buy for me. That said, still hugely enjoyable and I have spent £14 on many other things and been far more disappointed. 86. (My gut feeling is that wine-critic/cellar-tracker scores are too narrowly spread - 86 is a good score for me).
Age of British Drinkers (following on from Roy's surprise at the distribution of the British port consumer):
In my experience, vintage port is now very fashionable among in London and the home counties among aspiring young "professionals" (somewhat like cognac and hip-hop culture?) - though perhaps i'm only experiencing this as my generational cohort are just getting married/ buying houses so private dinner parties and functions are starting to outnumber general nights out at weekends. Having worked as a waiter for many years in a variety of settings whilst going through education, though, I'd hazard there's a bit more to this and there's something of a generational gap in UK port-drinkers - either the 60+ or 35-. However, this is only my opinion from experience both at work and on the basis of my own vs my parents' social circle (in a narrow region around London and SE) and may not hold true more generally.
Port styles for UK drinkers:
Strongly weighted to VP if you consider that VP only constitutes 2% of production. Unlike the French - who seem to delight in dreadful quality chilled ruby drunk almost exclusively as an aperitif - for a nation of wine-lovers with such great cheese this always surprises me (though, having spent at least a fortnight every year either cycle-touring or skiing in France since 2000, I say this with great affection for the country). Having said that, and after reading some of the posts here, it would seem that port is regarded far less exclusively in the US as a drink to go with cheese at the end of a meal (or to settle in for a long post-dinner session) than over here. UK market heavily weighted towards obviously British shippers - Graham, Taylor, Dow, Warre, Croft, Sandeman etc., with Niepoort, Noval, Vesuvio, Portal etc. all criminally overlooked. As, for that matter, are Colheitas (and tawny in general), though Krohn is starting to break out beyond the cognoscenti and make a real name for themselves among the dilettanti, but this has been well noted by numerous others on the forum.
Anyway, for those still reading, I've enjoyed learning a bit whilst observing over the last few months and look forward to a bit more contributing (and drinking) in future.
![[welcome.gif]](./images/smilies/welcome.gif "Welcome")
to FTLOP! It is always great to have someone join us who works in the wine industry. I must admit I don't think I've ever had a wine from your region before 
Hopefully you can point us in the right direction in which ones to seek out and try. 
![[cheers.gif]](./images/smilies/cheers.gif "Toast"){kind=small}
![[dance2.gif]](./images/smilies/dance2.gif "Stylin'"){kind=small}
) . I find I am incredibly sensitive to sweet alcoholic beverages, and if I have more than a glass or two these days I really notice it the next day.
Sorry about the house fire, but glad to see you didn't let it stop your passion for wine. I love the story of crawling under the house! My first real VP was a Taylor's 1966, then a 1970 after that. It was those two bottles that hooked me into this passion for all things Port and Portugal. So to hear about your '63 Taylors gave me a good chuckle. I hope you have fun here and I look forward to reading more posts from you.
![[beg.gif]](./images/smilies/beg.gif "Praying"){kind=small}
this will give him the courage to do so. For that I thank you tremendoustly!![[notworthy.gif]](./images/smilies/notworthy.gif "NotWorthy"){kind=small}
![[imnewhere.gif]](./images/smilies/imnewhere.gif "Newbie"){kind=small}
