For The Love Of Port

And for clarity--the same port from a different bottle counts as two...so if you had tastes out of two different 1931 Nacionals, that's two...

I am at 71...including 40 VPs and 13 LBVs. The rest is a mixed bag including 7 tawnies of all types.

I didn't keep count, but suspect it was between 300-400.

EDIT: I just checked the posts from the tastings I attended and counted 320. Add home consumption and we probably get to around 350.

I would suspect around the 250-300-ish range, give or take a little.

While that may sound like a lot, about 46 of them were in two days. Around 86 from my cellar at home. Plus offlines, trade tastings, retail tastings, wine dinners, etc. it adds up fast. And that doesn't include dry wines. This is just Ports.

I opened 59 bottles from my cellar of Douro dry wines this year as well.

Andy Velebil wrote:While that may sound like a lot, about 46 of them were in two days.

Have you remembered the 50ish that we shared together over four days in January?

Derek T. wrote:

Andy Velebil wrote:While that may sound like a lot, about 46 of them were in two days.

Have you remembered the 50ish that we shared together over four days in January?

Damn forgot about all those. Ok so my number is higher by what Derek said.

I'd rather not try to calculate the entire year, but in a 3 week period in June I have 410 distinct tasting notes from 64 of the 2011 VP's each tasted six times and 13 of those which were tasted 8x each. That is not counting all the other Ports tasted during those three weeks with dinners during events in Porto, including 56 VP's at another 2011 tasting held by the IVDP, a night of Port at the Confraria dinner, plus São João festival activities, Barco Rabelos regatta day/night and private Port tastings at restaurants, Lodges and several homes as well.

The following week was spent touring through the Douro with a group in which I took notes on another 122 Ports, so it was a crazy month of fortification. I prefer not to speculate on hundreds of other Ports consumed/tasted throughout the rest of the year during the Port Harvest Tour and UK visit (circa 200 combined in two weeks), plus a dozen or more Port tastings across No. America, in fear of being arrested with a DUI while typing.

Just in case: "Officer, I swear I was spitting lots of these."

For a moment I thought I was doing well with 30+ (not sure how many LBVs, reserves, tawnies, etc.). Well, I'm still happy with that.

If you take out the harvest tour, and the week prior to it, I reckon I'd be under 20. I drank more Australian fortified this year than usual because I got given a box of it and had nowhere to put it, but I'm almost through them now. If I don't go to Portugal I rarely get the opportunity to taste so pretty much all of my consumption in a non-holiday year is me opening a bottle at home.

Just for grins, did you keep track of all Ports we tasted on the PHT, Paul? I know somebody mentioned a number but I was distracted in another conversation at the time and not sure I heard the number. I think it may have been Eric that said what it was. I am assuming it was 125-160 and obviously that doesn't include the DOC wines.

Roy Hersh wrote:Just for grins, did you keep track of all Ports we tasted on the PHT, Paul? I know somebody mentioned a number but I was distracted in another conversation at the time and not sure I heard the number. I think it may have been Eric that said what it was. I am assuming it was 125-160 and obviously that doesn't include the DOC wines.

I've only got notes on 71 ports from the harvest tour, but I didn't take notes on any of ports we had with meals, so that is a significant number I didn't take notes on right there.

Probably about 250 for me.

About 250-300 ports