For The Love Of Port

I'm fortunate enough to have received one free dinner at The Herbfarm restaurant. I decided to use if for Thanksgiving as both my wife and my families aren't in the area. We usually have dinner with friends, but thought it would be interesting to see Ron Zimmerman's interpretation of Thanksgiving dinner.

I follow him on Twitter and remembered seeing something about him having Madeira on Thanksgiving. I just tweeted something to him referring to it.

It turns out he's going to have an 1863 Madeira, which is the year that Abraham Lincoln instituted what is now the Thanksgiving Holiday.

I don't even know if I can properly appreciate what I'm about to experience. But I look forward to it none the less!

An excellent vintage, for both Port and Madeira.
Sounds like something to look forward too!

Well? TN?

You've got me beat by 12 years. I'm jealous. The 1875 I got is a US Grant Presidency Madeira. Hey, that's an idea. A dinner featuring wines from every presidency as far back as we can arrange. I've got Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, LB Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Harding (only 3 ounces left of a 1922 Madeira) and Grant. Or maybe just a Port or Madeira from every Presidency, to avoid all the dead old bottles of Bordeaux.

I took a look at how many 1863 Ports & Madeira bottlings I have had over the years and although I knew it was a great year in both regions, I am pretty amazed at how diverse the offerings are from this vintage. It was the year that on a single weekend, more American lives were lost in battle (Gettysburg) with single shot muskets and rifles, than in a decade of fierce jungle warfare over a century later in Viet Nam. Crazy!

Not a good year for Lincoln, but still, better than 1865 which was not nearly as good for Portuguese dessert wines.

We had a bottle of the 1863 bual at a July 4 picnic and toasted the victory at Vicksburg. It seemed a young wine. Barbeito must have gotten quite a stash of it.

The total casualties (killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing) on both sides at Gettysburg were about 50,000. I think the actual dead were about 8,000. The casualty total at Gettysburg would be about the same as the total casualties on both sides in the battle for Iwo Jima in 1945 and about the same as the American casualties in the battle for Okinawa later in 1945. The American dead in the Vietnam War were about 58,000, which was about the same as the total casualties in the whole Gettysburg campaign. The term "casualties" is often used loosely and can cause confusion.