For The Love Of Port

Just got back from our Sacramento tasting - that was a lot of fun! We did several rounds:

1. Double-blind tasting of the 6 ports - no sharing of notes until everyone was done tasting.
2. Enjoying the ports with a variety of excellent appetizers. My favorite was a Point-Reyes blue-cheese filled puff-pastry topped with beets braised in Port, bacon and stewed grapes. Absolutely out of this world, and it went great with the ports.
3. A dessert round of Quinta do Portal 20 year tawny - excellent
4. A fine dinner accompanied by a bottle of 1996 Beringer Private Reserve Cabernet. It was interesting how long it took our pallettes to adapt to the cab after tasting so much port. But alongside a nice New York steak topped with a bit more of the Point Reyes blue cheese, the cab did not dissappoint one bit.
5. Another round of the Portal 20 year with dessert. Phyllis had a strawberry-rhubard cheesecake which was the winner for pairing with the tawny.

For those who were at the Sammamish tasting last week, our #1 tonight was one of the two that tied for 1st last week.

Colorado was a very limited affair after I was out of town on vacation. I picked up the four reserve Ports as previously mentioned and shared them after a dinner with friends, totaling 6 people. I tried two different large stores for the Taylor First Estate, one of which even claimed they had it in their online inventory, to no avail. We might have to do a round 2 some time with our favorite pick and several of the "winning" labels we didn't have.

Eric, if you send me your results I'll include them in the article I'm writing for Roy anyway. Doesn't matter which reserves you had available - all data is good data!

Glenn E. wrote:Eric, if you send me your results I'll include them in the article I'm writing for Roy anyway. Doesn't matter which reserves you had available - all data is good data!

Glenn - you do realise that every time you say something about your article we all get a bit more excited about seeing it. No pressure, but don't let us down with an anti-climax now, will you?

Al B. wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:Eric, if you send me your results I'll include them in the article I'm writing for Roy anyway. Doesn't matter which reserves you had available - all data is good data!

Glenn - you do realise that every time you say something about your article we all get a bit more excited about seeing it. No pressure, but don't let us down with an anti-climax now, will you?

It's almost completely written, but won't make the April newsletter because Roy's already done with that one and will be sending it out later this week. I just received Sacramento's results so now just need to hear from Eric and I can get the article to Roy in time for the May newsletter!

Well in typical Roy fashion, the newsletter was slow in getting out and April's newsletter will actually be at the end of the month of May due to my travel to Portugal for 1/3 of the month.

The article is done and in Roy's hands!

Glenn E. wrote:The article is done and in Roy's hands!

Soon.

So now that the results have been published, what do you all think?

What really amazes me about the results is that these tastings were all blind, and yet one Port managed to win every time it showed up!

And I think that was the one I couldn't get. One place listed it in their inventory, but didn't have it. I found it a few weeks too late at the place I should have gone first. Oh well.

Great Article. My friends loved it and want to know if there will be anymore global tastings--perhaps hard to do unless we kept it to what's readily available, but i could see us doing this with 10 year tawnies or LBVs. These type of tastings, while not high end, are a great way to introduce ports to the unknowing.

So I'll put it out there... Is there any interest in organizing another global tasting?

Very good article Glenn! Nice to tag in all the other tastings around the world into it.

John M. wrote:So I'll put it out there... Is there any interest in organizing another global tasting?

I'm interested, but these are pretty challenging to put together, so maybe we should make them an annual event?

John M. wrote:So I'll put it out there... Is there any interest in organizing another global tasting?

Al B Wrote:
I'm interested, but these are pretty challenging to put together, so maybe we should make them an annual event?

You're probably right--maybe we can tag it with International Port Day. Count the New Jersey USA contingent in.

John M. wrote:

John M. wrote:So I'll put it out there... Is there any interest in organizing another global tasting?

Al B Wrote:
I'm interested, but these are pretty challenging to put together, so maybe we should make them an annual event?

You're probably right--maybe we can tag it with International Port Day. Count the New Jersey USA contingent in.

I think that's an excellent idea, and one that Roy can perhaps use to help push the idea of #PortDay continuing to exist.

I really throught that Glenn did a great job on the article.

The #PortDay event sounds like a winner too!