![The Port Forum :tpf:](./images/smilies/tpf.gif)
![The Port Forum :tpf:](./images/smilies/tpf.gif)
Despite initially baulking at the price, I bought mine in July, and am fully converted. A lot of the discussion on the web has been about using them for long-term preservation of wine (e.g. having a glass a year or something) but that doesn’t seem to me to be the most useful function. Instead, I’ve found that it’s best at solving the problem of “I’d like to drink some nice Port but I don’t have the time to drink the whole bottle before it starts to fade” since it’s possible simply to draw a glass or two of wine and then put the bottle back in the cellar.
As a result, I’ve found I now usually have about 5 bottles on the go at once: a whiteI; a red; an old Port; a young Port; and something tawny; and can drink from them when I fancy. I also rather like being able to do spur of the moment comparison between ports and try some odder stuff where I couldn’t otherwise see myself drinking the whole bottle.
I haven’t, yet, had an exploding bottle, but I am a little concerned about the sediment. Since one has to lift the bottle to a higher angle then one would for normal pouring (so as to fill the neck completely), the sediment can get rather disturbed by the pouring. On one occasion, I managed to block the spout with a small piece; assumed that it was not pouring because of insufficient pressure; and therefore managed to overpressurise the bottle resulting in a bit of seepage over the next week. I’m not sure whether one of their smaller needles might help avoid this problem, although the flow rate is already very slow.
Is anyone else using one with any success?