ThePortForum.com

I’m mostly confused as to why someone might spend £140K on a drinks cabinet and then fill it it with what appear to be 3 bottles of Penfolds Bin 28; 5 bottles of another Penfolds wine; 2 bottles of Grey Goose; and singles of Nolly Prat, Ketel One, Bombay Sapphire; Cointreau; and that Scotch that has...

Some years ago (2006) David Linley produced some bespoke cabinets to house a significant vertical of d'Yquem that AWC were selling. These look like extremely good value in comparison. I was rather surprised to see that he puts prices on his website. At £140,000 the “Simple Pleasures” drinks cabinet...

Papa Figo & Mateus Rose don’t immediately scream “Halloween” to me! (Or even Autumn / Fall for that matter...).

From the range it sounds like a promotion for Sogrape: did they say anything interesting?

This is just practice, not any kind of law or regulation, but just from the bottles that I've seen it seems like "old" is worth 20 years by itself, and then each "very" adds 20 years. The Niepoort VV, for example, was something over 60 years old when it was bottled. There's an e...

This thread encouraged me to open a 2001 TF tonight. I'm not sure that provides much of an answer to the question but it has been very enjoyable and makes me wonder why I have drunk so little TF recently.

Following my previous post in August, I bought some more filters which I have been playing with. I now have a set of 250μm, 125μm, 90μm, 75μm and 50μm. My conclusion is the best grade for filtering Port 75μm . This filters out any particulate which can be tasted whilst remaining reasonably free pour...

This has made me realise it is a very, very long time since I have drunk a bottle of Terra Feita even though it was my Port of choice when I was a student because it was the cheapest serious SQVP! I need to remedy this soon. I wonder if you can still get halves easily for a side-by-side tasting? Var...

On returning home, I feel like comparing the M&S sherry to something a bit better. I open a bottle of González Byass’ Amontillado “Del Duque” VORS (and change the subject of this thread!). This GB has an average age of over 30 years. The solera was apparently established in 1857 and is fed with ...

Thank you. The very little tax that you pay compared to what is charged in the UK makes the difference in price even more stark, especially when considering cheaper Ports!

Work takes me, at the last minute, on a long-distance train. The only shop offering wine near the station is an M&S. The only Port is the M&S Ruby Port in its clear glass “decanter”. I’ve drunk this a bit before. It is fine but not very appealing to me. I therefore look for other options. Th...

Are the prices you are quoting in the states generally inclusive of taxes? If so, I was wondering how much roughly they are? In the UK retail prices will include c.£3 for duty per bottle (which obviously impacts cheaper Ports more than VP) and then 20% on the whole amount.

From the BBC this morning: Will a new name give Wales' sparkling wine cheers? Champagne, prosecco, cava and now... pefriog? That's the Welsh word for sparkling and it has been mooted by some in the industry as a blanket name for sparkling wine produced in Wales. I am sympathetic to the problem that ...

I just checked the website of Continente, a large supermarket chain in Portugal, and I can buy Dow's Bomfim for €30 and Croft Roeda for €40. The years are unclear. None of these prices make any sense to me! In the UK Roeda is consistently the cheapest SQVP so I am surprised it is quite a bit more e...

The prices for the recent Bomfin releases have surprised me because I also remember it being quite a cheap SQVP. There used to be a big jump in price between it and the Quinta da Senhora da Ribeira. I may be misremembering this, but I'm pretty sure in the late 2000s the Bomfin was consistently cheap...

Congratulations, Julian, on the publication of this second edition! Mine arrived this pm. It's now next to the first edition and pre publication version.Any more versionso and I fear that I will have to reinforce the shelves! I am going to have to re-shelve all of my Port books as a result of this o...

What has long interested me about this decade is that it feels like the start of a transition from each decade having just its customary 3 general declarations to the modern pattern of vintage port being produced almost every year. In particular, the run of years from 1980 to 1987 allowed good vinta...

As a rule, Portuguese bottles have a punt with a flat or gently concave base, something rarely seen on quality bottles made elsewhere. A little party trick when offered an old bottle to look at is to study the neck whilst covertly feeling the base of the bottle. If the punt gives it away as Portugu...

The weight of this bottle intrigued me. I recall, a decade ago, a producer fearing that the green agenda would force them to use ultra lightweight bottles going forward. Seems that memo got 'filed'.. Here are some dry bottle weights, weighed just now: El cheapo Pinot Grigio bottle from my pub - 340...

Chartham - nice 2020 Pinot Noir and Rose de Noir. If you want to visit here, they are next to Chartham train station and only 3 or 4 miles from Canterbury Westwell - They major in Ortega but try to produce this in innovative ways (barrel, steel, amphora). They are also always experimenting. For sur...

Ah. Thank you very much. That makes it much clearer. As I’ve mentioned before, I think these old fashioned abbreviations are much less misleading than the “indications” of age on the 10-50 years; although I am pretty sure that when VVO was last regularly appeared on wine bottles, it wasn’t nearly as...

Taylor’s obviously think not since they been adding their own selo to their LBVs for a while. It is black and has the Royal Warrant on the front. It’s interesting that they have done this: it makes me think that the selos produced by the IVDP were either expensive or difficult to use since I can’t i...

I presume most of these are not really intended to be drunk but rather collected like those expensive single-malt Scotchs and the like, although it wouldn’t surprise me if we see a non-limited edition one in the near future which aims to be something like the Remy-Martin Louis XIII (i.e. very fancy ...

Unfortunately not. This is probably the best page about it. I like the name: the Surrey Iron Railway is one of the most substantial pre-steam-engine railways (with the “trains” being pulled by horses!).

English whites... Suffolk used to have lots of little vineyards mainly growing Bacchus and Muller Thurgau which in the mini ice age of 1991-1994 were pretty much all that would grow. I used to enjoy visiting them in the mid-late 1990s but the wines were never more than quaffers at best (mind you, t...

Great stuff. Looking forward to it!