ThePortForum.com

Incidentally, there’s a little bit about this port from Dirk Niepoort on Decanter.com:

Maggie Rosen, quoting Dirk Niepoort on [url=http://www.decanter.com/news/news.php?id=280355]Decanter.com[/url] wrote: The vintage is very, very good. It's less structured, and less powerful than 2003, for example, but more delicate and harmonious, and will live a long time.

TBird wrote:yup, i play bass! and i'm a frustrated guitarist turned bassist (aren't we all? ) which means i play guitar pretty good too.

I think a more accurate description is probably frustrated musician turned bassist

Looked like a 1975 that is, faint translucent brown, the red having died long ago. Nose and mouth were of sweet light honey: simple, and no fruit at all. Pleasant enough, and perhaps even port, though should have been drunk two decades ago. I propose that jdaw1 be served all ’75s blind from now on ...

For info: These were sent using Priority Airmail with a customs declaration sticker on the side of the package noting that the contents were "Wine tasting samples" with a value of £0. The package either passed through customs unnoticed or the declaration was acceptable to them. I'll wager...

1800 - Bad [!] 1934 - Very fair Apparently it’s been downhill all the way from 1820! :shock: I’m curious as to how the two hierarchies of ‟fair”, ‟very fair” and ‟very fair indeed” and ‟good”, ‟very good” and ‟very good indeed” mesh together. ‟Good” seems unlikely to be better than ‟very fai...

DRT wrote:A very good QPR port. I will buy more.

Do you think this might have the same consistency issues that seem to affect the Tesco VP (with some being extremely good for their cost and some being extremely bad)?

Also, isn’t TBird another bass player? If so, then the bass is obviously the instrument of choice for the Port drinker!

Re: What instruments do you play / own? Oh dear!this has rather highlighted my main vice. I stopped counting when I got to 100 (though most of them are folk instruments I’ve picked up on holiday). These are some of the fipple flutes which are now in a filing cabinet behind my desk: fipples_thumb_sm...

Regarding the prices at Graham's, yes they are high. Vila Nova is not a place to find any deals. It was pretty shocking to me to find that port prices in Portugal are almost without exception higher than we can find them here in the States. I'm not sure why that is. If you do a little research you ...

I don’t know the ruby reserves very well for the simple reason that they usually cost about the same as one of the cheap, unfiltered LBVs. Indeed, with supermarket discounts, they are frequently more expensive. Am I missing a trick, though, by being slightly snobby about what I drink? How does somet...

I don’t think this is a DOC wine, but it might as well be one :-). It is produced by Casa Santos Lima which is apparently based at Quinta Da Boavista ‟a short drive north of Lisbon in the Estremadura”. It is made out of Castelão (Periquita) (which I don’t know) and Tinta Roriz (which we all know a...

Conveyed by the good offices of Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service from the fair hands of Derek T to fertile New York. I'm glad that the samples managed to survive the trip. We were debating whether a number of anonymous sample jars full or purple liquid would be impounded on arrival!

Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions and particularly to Derek for some very generous extra assistance. The bar at Graham's looks excellent and I think I will try to pay it a visit (even if I skip the tour), especially as they are open on a Sunday. I'm a bit curious about their prices, tho...

Thanks to everyone for their replies. I recommend the Ramos Pinto lodge tour. They have converted their old HQ building into a museum, and the tour gives you a good amount of history on the company that is different than what other tours give. The Sandeman lodge tour is probably the most touristy an...

You only had to scroll down the page a little to find this ! Any advice you can add based on recent experience would be welcome. I did, which is why I feel I’ve got a good idea of where to stay and where to eat :-). What didn’t seem to be mentioned in that thread was which lodges to visit on a shor...

Glenn E. wrote:What do you think? Drinkable or no?

Only one way to find out . Shame it probably didn’t get any wine from 1927 if that was the year in which it was bottled.

Portman wrote:I won't be seeking this out again.

I think it’s always worth having another go with restaurant Ports. Whilst some seem to survive pretty well, others have almost no chance of surviving being opened for long lengths of time in a hot bar.

I’ve just booked some tickets for a couple of days in Oporto over the second May bank holiday (23-25th). Shamefully, it will be my first visit. :oops: The first question is, of course, does anyone fancy an offline there (flights are c. £120 on Ryan Air and £200 on TAP)? :-) More seriously, I was won...

DRT wrote:

In an email today in response to an email from me pointing out that the AEVP does not list the 1981, Messias Baptista wrote:Dear Mr. Derek Turnbull,

You're right! It was my mistake, please accept my apologies. If i can help you with anything else, please just say so.

My kind regards,

Messias Baptista

Not sure what sort of precedence that sets for of information from shippers! 

According to the AEVP all of the years were declared between 1975 and 1985 with the exception of 1981. That's interesting (incidentally, that site only works properly in IE; for Firefox or Chrome turn Javascript off). Can we take that to mean the 1981 was entirely unofficial? I'm still curious as t...

I think Messias have always been more focused on tawny rather than vintage port which probably explains the slow start in declaring vintages. That’s exactly the explanation I would give. It also looks like Messias purchased Quinta do Cachão in 1956 which might explain why they moved to producing VP...

Am I really the only one going to concerts these days? I haven’t been to a concert for a while (I, too, blame the recession), though I did play at St James’ Piccadilly the Friday before last. The programme was a cheerful combination of Brahms’ Tragic Overture; Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder and Schuman...

All our Vintage Ports are single Quinta (Quinta do Cachão) unless Messias Vintage 2003 and Messias Vintage 2005 and the years of vintage were: 1955; 1960; 1963; 1964; 1965; 1966; 1967; 1970; 1975; 1976; 1977; 1978; 1979; 1980; 1981; 1982; 1983; 1984; 1985; 1989; 1997. Wow...the levels of knowledge ...

Various posts split from, or quoted from, a tasting note 1970 Messias Quinta do Cachão dated Sun 05 Apr 2009. jdaw1, 23:00 NY time on Mon 06 April 2009. It’s odd that Messias produced a SQVP and a VP in the same year and moreso that, judging by the tasting notes, Quinta do Cachão seems to be consis...

As far as I was able to determine, although I could find no written proof of this, was that cow bones, stripped of most of their meat, were used to add body to the wine; in local parlance, to "fix" the wine. One of the principle shippers actually told me that they only stopped this practi...