For The Love Of Port

Andy V. wrote:Hey Mario, How's the trip going? BTW, Your English is just fine

Thanks Andy :). I'm fine here. It's hot Weather - It's Summer time here !! (right now in Mozambique) :)

/MF/

Mario

Thanks for the tip. George's suggestion is quite similar to what I do already, but I had never thought of using more than one glass and adding some of the glasses back into the decanter.

I'll try it next time I open a black bottle.

Alex

This topic is worth re-exploring. Do you still feel the same as you did a few years ago?

Many years ago I was offered a trade, a couple of bottles of '85 Grahams for a '77 Musar. I mentioned this to a friend of mine in Edmonton who's opinion on port I trust and respect. He told me to beware of any '85 Grahams that were in green bottles. He didn't know why both kinds of bottles were on the market but over the years he noticed that the green bottled ports were not as good or consistent as the ones in the dark bottles.

I found out that the port I was being offered was in the green bottles and turned down the trade. To this day I don't know whether the green bottles were fake or genuine bottles that were affected by light and produced inconsistent results.

I voted for option two, darker glass difficult to see through.

Mahmoud.

I have never seen Graham's port from the 80s in green bottles. This really does sound like a possible fake bottling!

He didn't know why both kinds of bottles were on the market but over the years he noticed that the green bottled ports were not as good or consistent as the ones in the dark bottles.

All the Dow '85 I have seen in the UK has been in totally opaque black bottles; yet a year ago, whilst in the Graham's lodge, I was surprised to see that the ex-cellars stock being offered to visitors was in bottles that were quite a pale shade of green. Why, I don't know, and nor did the hospitality team in the lodge.

I don't have enough experiance of the two bottlings to assert with any certainty whether one was better than the other; but you do get variations between bottlings, even with Oporto bottled wines. The most striking (and for me, intriguing variation) is the apparent existence of two very different Warre 75's. One, which unfortunately seems more common, is a hot wine, to the extent that it significantly spoils the drinking experiance; whilst the other has no fire whatsoever, and is a very acceptable, and fully mature port.

I recently bought a case of W75, which I hope is of the latter variety. Some time over the next year I will give it a test drive - if it proves to be the fire-water type, I will probably sell the bulk of it into the 40th birthday market in three years time..

Tom Archer wrote:

He didn't know why both kinds of bottles were on the market but over the years he noticed that the green bottled ports were not as good or consistent as the ones in the dark bottles.

All the Dow '85 I have seen in the UK has been in totally opaque black bottles; yet a year ago, whilst in the Graham's lodge, I was surprised to see that the ex-cellars stock being offered to visitors was in bottles that were quite a pale shade of green. Why, I don't know, and nor did the hospitality team in the lodge.

I don't have enough experiance of the two bottlings to assert with any certainty whether one was better than the other; but you do get variations between bottlings, even with Oporto bottled wines. The most striking (and for me, intriguing variation) is the apparent existence of two very different Warre 75's. One, which unfortunately seems more common, is a hot wine, to the extent that it significantly spoils the drinking experiance; whilst the other has no fire whatsoever, and is a very acceptable, and fully mature port.

I recently bought a case of W75, which I hope is of the latter variety. Some time over the next year I will give it a test drive - if it proves to be the fire-water type, I will probably sell the bulk of it into the 40th birthday market in three years time..

I had no idea that the '75 Warre had a split personality. I too, recently picked up some this wine hoping for a nice solid tipple but it seems that the odds are against it...