For The Love Of Port

You own a 3L or 6L bottle of Vintage Port. How many people would you feel is optimal to consume each of these two sized bottles?



On a separate note, we all owe gratitude to Julian Wiseman for changing the course of history in our lifetime, lobbying the IVDP to enable us all to purchase Port bottles larger than magnums.

Well, Sean and I and our better halves killed a double mag of '77 Taylor, 2 bottles of port and bottle of Champagne in one sitting...

In reality, I'd say three people for a Double mag is a good night, two people is special, one person is a hero (or sad depending on perspective).

Compared to Moses I am a light weight---half of a regular bottle is usually plenty (which is essentially one bottle of regular wine given the high alcoholic percentage of port--and yes I've gone beyond that plenty)--so a magnum would be 4, double mag 8 and so forth. Depends on the crowd and set up (are we eating?, is it a protracted evening? are people drinking other things?)

John M. wrote:Compared to Moses I am a light weight---half of a regular bottle is usually plenty (which is essentially one bottle of regular wine given the high alcoholic percentage of port--and yes I've gone beyond that plenty)--so a magnum would be 4, double mag 8 and so forth. Depends on the crowd and set up (are we eating?, is it a protracted evening? are people drinking other things?)

+1

Well said, John!

And that would be a good night for me. Most of the time I open a single bottle and it's enough for 4 people because no one else drinks as much as I do. I have a 6L of 2011 Quevedo and honestly I have no idea when/where/why I'll eventually open it. It won't be mature by my retirement (or, quite probably, in my lifetime) so I'll probably just have to pick a circumstance and go for it!

It does really depend on the people, setting, etc. as Glenn and John have mentioned. Last night, a Sunday before the work week, four of us didn't manage to finish off a 750 of Port after some light beer drinking with dinner. Friday was a different story, as beer for happy hour and wine with dinner didn't stop five of us from easily killing a 750. Sometimes one small pour is enough for me, sometimes I can drink half a bottle.

I own several mags of Port and Sauternes, and I'm really not sure when I'm going to open those, let alone when I could conceivably open a 3 or 6L bottle. The times when I have 12 or 16 people over, I'm opening many bottles, not big bottles. But maybe some day I'll have more than 16 and do a mag tasting

For regular, "non-event" drinking, a bottle of port is good for 2-3 people.

With big formats, the challenge is get them fully consumed in a single session. I have three Nebuchadnezzars (15L) in my cellar (1 x W94 and 2 x V94) and have it mind to open the first in ten years time when I'm 64..

- Reckon I'll need about 40 people to see it off..

Tom Archer wrote:With big formats, the challenge is get them fully consumed in a single session. I have three Nebuchadnezzars (15L) in my cellar (1 x W94 and 2 x V94) and have it mind to open the first in ten years time when I'm 64..

- Reckon I'll need about 40 people to see it off..

True,
While it's easier in some areas to get larger groups of Port loving people together than other areas, this is the problem for all wines in super large formats.

Personally, I am not a fan of super large formats (over 3L generally) for a variety of reasons. The above being one. Some others being the leaking issues most develop over time (my biggest issue). Trying to store such large bottles is always a pain. Moving such a large bottle. And the super slow aging curve.

Andy Velebil wrote: Moving such a large bottle. And the super slow aging curve.

I had a 3L of '77 Taylor break during shipping.

Was not happy as they aren't easily replaceable. I only have one left...

I had a 6L break during shipping, so I feel your pain. Fortunately, I am having it replaced.

For me, the biggest issue with super large formats like Tom's is pouring them. They weigh a ton and it takes two people. I've helped pour some really big one's at charity wine auction parties here in WA in the late 1990's. One of the 18L bottles weighed 85#. My arms were aching after that and I was in much better shape back then.

I'd still like to get more responses to the original question though.

Roy Hersh wrote:I had a 6L break during shipping, so I feel your pain. Fortunately, I am having it replaced.

My purchase price was refunded, but I rather them keep my money and I got my wine intact. I applaud them for the refund without a big hassle.

Roy Hersh wrote:I'd still like to get more responses to the original question though.

I guess I didn't exactly answer that, did I?

Some friends got married last spring, and I brought magnums of 1985 Graham for the reception. I shouldn't have - plural wasn't necessary. One magnum was sufficient for about 40 people, though beer and wine were also available at the bar.

Our British friends notwithstanding, I think that 1 bottle per person is normally more than sufficient even for Port geeks. It's certainly possible to consume more than that, but I wouldn't call those occasions normal.

So for me I think the answer lies between those two extremes.

Assuming the people in question are Port lovers, and that there's something else going on (like food, or cake, or even just tapas/cheese/hors d'oeuvres), I'd say 2-3 people per bottle probably trending toward 3. 9 servings from a bottle makes for pretty large servings, and that's still 3 per person. That's a pretty good amount of Port per person for a social event. On average, of course. There would no doubt be people who only had 1 glass, but they would be counterbalanced by Moses.

So I'll say 12 people for a 3L and 24 people for a 6L. Double that if the people aren't pretty serious Port geeks.

Roy Hersh wrote:For me, the biggest issue with super large formats like Tom's is pouring them. They weigh a ton and it takes two people. I've helped pour some really big one's at charity wine auction parties here in WA in the late 1990's. One of the 18L bottles weighed 85#. My arms were aching after that and I was in much better shape back then.

Cork removal isn't a trivial exercise either.

Tom Archer wrote:With big formats, the challenge is get them fully consumed in a single session. I have three Nebuchadnezzars (15L) in my cellar (1 x W94 and 2 x V94) and have it mind to open the first in ten years time when I'm 64..

- Reckon I'll need about 40 people to see it off..

I'm not sure I'd agree with you there Tom. Given the amount we usually consume when we get together - which is about a bottle each - it will only take 20 of us to work our way through a 15l neb. If you invite 40 people, you'd better bring two nebs!

Roy Hersh wrote:I had a 6L break during shipping, so I feel your pain. Fortunately, I am having it replaced.

For me, the biggest issue with super large formats like Tom's is pouring them. They weigh a ton and it takes two people. I've helped pour some really big one's at charity wine auction parties here in WA in the late 1990's. One of the 18L bottles weighed 85#. My arms were aching after that and I was in much better shape back then.

The only times I have ever had to decant anything bigger than a magnum, I did it by siphoning the liquid out of the bottle and into standard sized decanters. When it was a tappit hen I was decanting, I double decanted since the tappit hen was not too big to be difficult to handle and just looked so good. Double mags I tend to leave in the decanter and have 4 decanters placed around the table.

Roy Hersh wrote:I'd still like to get more responses to the original question though.

I think that for a 3l bottle, with people sitting round a table and eating (and not drinking significant amounts of any other alcohol) you really only need 4 people or 6 if people are taking it a bit easy - and lots, and lots of water of course.

A 6l should be capable of keeping 8-12 occupied for a while. If I look at our last few offlines we had 6 people with 4 bottles, 10 people with 11 bottles and 4 people with 4 bottles.

Roy Hersh wrote:You own a 3L or 6L bottle of Vintage Port. How many people would you feel is optimal to consume each of these two sized bottles?

3L = about 4-5 normal Port drinkers and about 8-10 non-serious Port drinkers
6L = double that.

Today is the day the Julian finally gets to enjoy his victory properly...
Well deserved

Derek T. wrote:Today is the day the Julian finally gets to enjoy his victory properly...

Smugness.jpg

Well deserved

Wow, that's incredible. How big is that bottle? How many people were drinking from it?

6L i do believe

Congrats on him finally getting his just reward and very honorable of the other half for honoring the wager.

I would imagine you've all read the article in the newsletter (#83) written by Julian recounting the events that led to the change in the IVDP regulation regarding large format bottles of Port?!?!?

Moses Botbol wrote:Wow, that's incredible. How big is that bottle? How many people were drinking from it?

It was an Imperial (6l) and was opened with nine Magnums of F85, three bottles on Noval 1955 and many gallons of beer at the 60th annual dinner of the Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club.