The cork fell in... and other excuses

[winesecretary]

I was reviewing my ports this evening and checking levels on the older stuff. On holding my last bottle of Croft '63 up to the light I found the cork had fallen in (although the plastic capsule had held). Obviously it was put out of its misery immediately. Although a bit light it is proving surprisingly tasty.

Other than 'my glass is empty' what are the other standard justifications employed by TPF-ites for opening a bottle of port for one?

[jdaw1]

Oh dear. The excuse “my glass is empty” shows a lack of planning.

Other excuses? If I don’t decant now, my glass will soon be empty.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I'll accelerate my opening plans for something which is seeping.

[DRT]

Other than 'my glass is empty' what are the other standard justifications employed by TPF-ites for opening a bottle of port for one?

I only open bottles of VP for one if the day has a "y" in it.

[uncle tom]

Other than 'my glass is empty' what are the other standard justifications employed by TPF-ites for opening a bottle of port for one?

I use a bit of software I wrote using Excel VBA to choose my next bottle, thus I can blame the 'puter when I open the next bottle.

The computer looks each time for bottles that have committed 'an offence' and after identifying those guilty then looks to see which one has the greatest number of other misdemeanours, each misdemeanour weighted according to gravity. This provides me flights of six 'victims' to put on 'death row'

Wines that have been drunk during the past year are excluded, as are any vintages or producers that have featured on any of the six preceding selections. I also have a rule that the average age of six consecutive bottles may not exceed 48 years.

My six principle offences are:

1) First bottle from a case or stash
2) Overstock, either of the wine or the vintage
3) Poor level
4) Not recently drunk
5) Wines that have been flagged to drink up
6) Last bottle from a case or stash

The point scores for various offences, which range from seepage signs, to deficient levels to damaged labels vary - a below low shoulder level scores 12000 points at one extreme, whereas having an odd number of bottles left (essentially a tie-breaker) scores just one point.

The point tallies are then subjected to multipliers for 'mitigating circumstances'. These are applied in respect of age, cost, vintage understock, low stock of the wine or of the vintage. A bottle whose purchase price exceeds the average by a factor of four or more, has a multiplier of 0.125 applied - a vintage where I have fewer than 12 bottles left gets a multiplier of 0.5. The multipliers for each reason are then factored on each other.

The system has demanded endless tweaking when I have disagreed with the computer's choice, but since it's last revamp I have been consistently happy with it's selections.

I am currently drinking a bottle of Dow '60 - it's primary offence was poor level (VTS) It was also the last bottle from the stash, and also gained a few points for having no label. It also gained points because both the wine and the vintage are in overstock. Being under sixty years old it gained no mitigation for age, and it's original cost (back in 2012) was slightly under my average spend, so it gained no mitigation there either.

Next up is a Niepoort 1980 for not having been drunk recently at home (I last opened a bottle on March 12th 2015)

[winesecretary]

Tom's is the perfect answer in that it properly combines computer programming with economic data, a behavioural analysis overlay, and the happily remorseless consumption of significant quantities of port.

[I forwarded this thread to a friend of mine who is a, quietly brilliant, economist and social scientist (and also an accountant) and she described his response as 'really rather wonderful'.]