For The Love Of Port

I have been collecting bottles for this horizontal for several years and have discussed it with many people. It's finally time to finalize the plans! I have 23 bottles and a commitment for a 24th. I know of at least 3-4 others that shouldn't be too difficult to source... if I can find a total of 6 more we can have an even 30!

I picked Pro Bowl weekend deliberately because no one watches the Pro Bowl. That conveniently avoids any conflicts with football games that might actually matter.

Due to the large number of bottles this will be a 2-day event. I'm going to hold the sessions at noon on Saturday and Sunday, so plan travel accordingly. (Read: you probably shouldn't plan to fly home on Sunday evening unless it's a very late flight.) For those who are available on Friday evening there will probably be something casual, but I'm not going to worry about setting that up until closer to the date. You'll want to eat lunch before arriving each day, and then groups will likely break off for dinners afterwards each evening. We may try to arrange a full-group dinner on Saturday evening, but it's going to be a large group so that may not be realistic.

The venue is not yet firm, but we're hoping to use the Holiday Inn again. It's nice enough for our purposes and very convenient. If we end up at a different location we'll be able to provide transport for 6-8, so reservations at the Holiday Inn are safe.

Also due to the large number of bottles we're going to go with a slightly larger tasting (and correspondingly smaller servings). So the hard limit for this tasting will be 16, which allows for 1.5 oz pours.

Since I already have most of the bottles, you won't need to bring one. If you have an esoteric bottle from 1985 that I don't already have, let me know. I'll total up the amount spent on all bottles, divide by the number of attendees, and we'll work out costs that way. I did pretty well on most of the bottles that I have, so my rough guess is that cost will be around $145 per person for, essentially, 2 bottles each.

NOTE ON COST: Since we're going to be renting conference rooms for 2 days at the Holiday Inn, we'll need to share that cost as well. Based on past experience and divided by 16 attendees, that should come to about $40 total per person for both days, in addition to the cost of the Port.

SECOND NOTE ON COST: The estimate for the Port has gone up to $145 per person, primarily due to the fact that we're going to have more bottles than I'd originally hoped. So the total cost per person (Port + room) is now estimated to be $185 per person.

We've been doing a lot of 20-year retrospectives... finally a chance to do an older one! :)

1. Glenn
2. Roy
3. Sandy (Nacional)
4. Stewart
5. Lisa
6. Vic
7. Brad
8. Eric M
9. Andy (Krohn)
10. David
XX. Sean (Delaforce, Osborne)
11. Jamie Garard (Feist)
12. Linda Garard (Morgan)
13. Lindsay
XX. Marc (Guedes, Niepoort, Rabello Valente)
14. Edgar
15. Steve McNabb (Edgar +1)
16. Lisa Stephenson

List of bottles that we already have (person bringing):

Barros
Borges & Irmao (John M. donation)
Burmester
Calem
Churchill
Cockburn
Croft
Delaforce (Sean)
Dow
Feist (Jamie)
Ferreira
Fonseca
Gould Campbell
Graham
Guedes (Marc)
Hooper's
Kopke
Krohn (Andy)
Martinez
Morgan (Linda)
Niepoort (Marc)
Offley Boa Vista
Osborne (Sean)
Ramos Pinto
Quarles Harris
Quinta do Infantado
Quinta do Noval
Quinta do Noval Nacional (Sandy)
Rabello Valente (Marc)
Sandeman
Smith Woodhouse
Taylor Fladgate
Warre

List of other Ports from 1985 that we still need:

Gonzalez Byass
Hutcheson
Kopke's Quinta Sao Luiz
Messias
Pocas
Quinta da Baldias
Quinta da Romaneira
Real Companhia Velha
Romariz
Rozes
Van Zeller

Ugh. Any other weekend and I could have made it.

Eric Ifune wrote:Ugh. Any other weekend and I could have made it.

D'ohh! And here I thought that weekend would work the best for most people.

Vic and I are in! Woot! And it is my birthday weekend! Nice!

-Lisa

Wonderful! Count me in! I have an '85 Hoopers Id be happy to contribute as well.

On a side note, you do remember we did a 30 year retrospective just last year right?


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Sign me up! That should be a reasonable flight, and I'll just cancel my plans to go to the Pro Bowl

I'm pretty weak on 1985s. My one possibly odd bottle is a Kopke.

I should be able to so put me down.


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Glenn, sounds like a great event, thanks for putting it together. Wish the dates worked for me

I am interested. Thanks Glenn!

Grr... forgot to post the list of bottles that I already have.

As I recall there is one commonly known name that I'm missing (possibly Niepoort, possibly Sandeman... can't remember for sure), but other than that I already have pretty much everything that you're likely to have on hand unless you have something really off the beaten path.

Not sure if I'll be in the country. I need a weekend of drinking a lot of port.

Seattle or Portugal---I'm always stuck in the middle...rats.

And I am certain I have one you don't....Borges & Irmao

I could've brought the '85 Hoopers, Croft, and Sandeman; real show stoppers

Moses Botbol wrote:I could've brought the '85 Hoopers, Croft, and Sandeman; real show stoppers

what are we going to do without them. You should mail them out to us, we'll advise on how good they were.

Glenn,
Do post what you have so we all can look it over and try to find the ones we don't have.

John M. wrote:
And I am certain I have one you don't....Borges & Irmao

That is one you don't see or hear about...ever. LOL

I spoke to Sean, he would like to join us. He is not 100% sure, but I signed him up anyway. He has some oddities and will be in touch w/ Glenn soon.

I also talked to Jamie and Linda Gerard, and they're planning to come as well!

I've added my list to the first post, and will add bottles as people find them so that we have a complete record.

John M. wrote:Seattle or Portugal---I'm always stuck in the middle...rats.

And I am certain I have one you don't....Borges & Irmao

You're right! I'd be happy to purchase it from you for the tasting if you can't attend and would be willing to sell it.

The lone "big name" that I'm missing is Niepoort, but that should be easy enough to obtain. I'm also missing a Souza, but surely someone purchased one of those in the FTLOP buying opportunity. (I only bought a bunch of 1987 - anniversary year.)

Glenn E. wrote:
The lone "big name" that I'm missing is Niepoort, but that should be easy enough to obtain. I'm also missing a Souza, but surely someone purchased one of those in the FTLOP buying opportunity. (I only bought a bunch of 1987 - anniversary year.)

I have the '85 Niepoort's to accompany the Hoopers....