Herman Gerdingh

[Derek T.]

Herman Gerdingh, creator of www.infoportwine.com, passed away on Friday 22nd Ferbruary 2013 following a long period of illness.

Herman and his wife, Elly, spent a decade creating one of the best sources of information about Port wine and were pioneers in reaching out to Port lovers across the world via the internet.

Please raise a glass to Herman's memory and to celebrate the legacy he has left behind.

[David Spriggs]

Sad news. This was an great site for port related news and info "back in the day" . I'll definitely raise a glass to Herman.

Oh... And thank you Derek for saving his legacy.

[Roy Hersh]

On the 9th of February, I was in touch with Herman's wife Elly to see how he was doing and sent a photo of a Port from 1939 which I knew was his birth year. I learned that Herman's aggressive brain tumor had stolen his ability to speak and his memory was failing rapidly. Elly showed him the graphic of the bottle, and I hope he smiled, but she let me know that he was not able to respond.

We were in touch often, a few years before FTLOP was born, when I used to write about Port and Madeira for Robin Garr's website and he would always publish links to them. I loved his site and gleaned lots of great news and especially his digested version of IVP (back then) info on sales volumes and value. It was a tremendous resource and Herman devoted untold hours to pass along information to thousands who visited his site. I learned a lot from it back in the day. None of it was done for money, it was truly Herman's passion during his later years and he was sad when he had to stop putting out his monthly updates just over a year ago.

I was thrilled to arrange a meet up with he and Elly in the Douro during our 2006 Port Harvest Tour, after a fine day at Vargellas and Vesuvio. Lots of FTLOP'ers were on that tour, including Derek, Alex, Chris G., Stewart, David, Andy, Jay and others ... this was where they all met one another, on this trip. I had only met our Brit friends a year earlier after the very first FTLOP tour in 2005. Anyway, we had a noisy dinner across the river from Vesuvio after a most memorable boat ride in the dark and I do mean DARK on our way to meet this couple. Meeting Herman and Elly was such a great pleasure after years of emails back and forth and seemingly missing one another in Portugal on several occasions by days or a week. So it was a great privilege when we finally met, even though we never expected what was going to take place. At the restaurant which is adjacent to Quinta Senhora da Ribeira, the harvest crew came in and had just finished their last day of picking and night of treading. They were having fun, drunk heavily and were wild and loud and danced and played instruments, so hearing the quiet and charismatic man that was Herman, was difficult for all of us. I should look at my old computer to see if I have photos from that night. I believe I do, but would have to check as that was nearly seven years and many tours ago.

I knew from Elly's email a couple of weeks ago, that the end was near and it was very sad to read. As David mentioned, for Port lovers, the archived material of Herman's; will remain available thanks to the foresight and work of Derek. My thoughts go out to Elly and after a few days, I will likely email her with a link to this thread, so she can see how much impact her husband had on many of us here who shared their love of the Douro and Port.

Thank you to Derek for passing along the sad news.

Herman will be missed. On Monday night, as Derek mentioned, I will lift a glass of fine Port in Herman's honor and in memory of a man who deeply loved Portugal and its most famous wine. I hope others will do the same!

[Derek T.]

Roy,

I remember that night in 2006 very well but I am sad to say I had no idea that it was Herman and Elly that we met. I do remember the meeting but did not make the connection. I corresponded with Herman frequently last year and it is a great pity my memory failed me as we both thought we had never met. Thank you for reminding me that we did.

Derek

[David Spriggs]

I've uploaded a picture from that night with Roy and Herman pondering the magnum of 1970 Dow.

http://www.fortheloveofport.com/portrai ... ?pos=-1954

[Derek T.]

Thanks for posting that, David.

Bonus points for anyone who can name the guy who owns the hand with the silver pen in the bottom right corner of that photograph?

[Roy Hersh]

Derek,

You were sitting right next to Elly. But it was so noisy that night, it is certainly understandable that at the time you were probably wondering who these people were. Understandable. However, it would have been great to share that you had been with them both at the restaurant. I see a camera in your hand. Do you have any photos from that night's dinner? It looks like you were going to take one of that magnum. Now that was some generous gift, eh? Little did they know what would be coming in the future, and by that, I mean the folks who made the "donation". Will never forget all of our first time treading in lagar. Amazing experience and I do maintain a picture of that, framed on my office wall. It might be more fitting and proper for you to copy this link to Elly. I am sure she would love to see this and know that she and Herman did get to meet you after all!

[oscarquevedo]

Thank you Derek for posting this sad news. I was very lucky to meet him back in November 2010 in Holland in a very rainy, day for lunch. Before that, he visit us in the Douro but I was too small to remeber Elly and Herman's visit. My father does remember.