How many Ports can you taste before losing objectivity?

[Roy Hersh]

This is not meant to be embarrassing, so whether the answer is four bottles or thirty, doesn't matter. Just curious as to what most people feel they can taste objectively, whether spitting or not.

[Glenn E.]

I don't like to spit because I like Port and want to drink it. So that affects my objectivity as the tasting proceeds.

I'd have to say that I'm only in top shape for the first 2-3 Ports. Then a little bit of palate fatigue sets in but I feel like I'm still accurate - I just need to take a little longer with each Port to pull out all of the details.

After maybe 8-10 Ports my notes start to deteriorate significantly. That's partly due to the alcohol, but it's also just pure palate fatigue. In order to really do more than 10-12 Ports I need to have a break for food. At these epic 16-20 bottle tastings that I've been doing over the last year or so I'm really not doing justice to the latter half of the tasting, and for the last 3-5 bottles the notes are really cryptic.

[Paul Fountain]

Interesting question, and the short answer is that I don't know as I've never had more than about 6 in one hit.

I know with table wines, that I can get through quite a lot as long as I do them in order of weight, starting with the aromatic whites and working my way through to heavier reds.
As for ports, I'd guess that if I was given a couple of heavy tannic monsters early that would blow my palete out fairly quickly, and it would be difficult to objectively taste more subtle ports after that.

[Jeff G.]

i'm with glenn,

if a formal spitting tasting
I can go through well over 40.

however alot of our tastings are our own bottles and i tend to savoir and swallow.

that usually limits me to 8-10.

however, I have to force myself to close my notes after initial round because I'm pretty sure my judgment will be skewed.

[Andy Velebil]

I assume you're talking about taking serious tasting notes and not just casual sipping and jotting down some impressions?

The most Ports I've tasted in one sitting where I was spitting everything, at least until after I was done tasting all the bottles, and taking serious notes was right around 40 (give or take a couple). By the end the palate was no doubt getting tired and a bit fatigued. Many of those bottles were cask sample Ports so the palate took a real pounding. I'd say that was probably a good limit for me as to how many bottles of Port to taste in one sitting where cask samples would be involved. As cask samples definitely do work the palate over more than older Ports do. So that number would increase if no young Ports are involved.

Although, I have tasted far more than that at trade tastings, but those were a combination of white, red, and fortified wines. And I wasn't taking serious notes on all of them, so I can't really count that.

[Monique Heinemans.]

Having attended just one serious spitting blindtasting (25 VP 2000) I must say that after the first 6 or 8 ports my palate already started to protest...
I do attend white and red wine tastings more often and I don't seem to have that probem there that soon. Furthermore I prefer to swallow a small sip from the wine I'm tasting as I think I can judge the wine better that way. That's probably also a reason why my palate fades sooner.