My Father Loved His Port (1939), G. B. Gloyne

Anything to do with Port.
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jdaw1
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My Father Loved His Port (1939), G. B. Gloyne

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Wine and Food, “A Gastronomical Quarterly Edited by André L. Simon”, issue “No. 22: Summer Number 1939” has, pp135–9, a personal recollection by G. B. Gloyne entitled “My Father Loved His Port”.
G. B. Gloyne, in My Father Loved His Port, wrote:
G. B. Gloyne
My Father Loved His Port

My father never was a rich man; he was but fourteen years of age when his father died, leaving his mother not too well off; an uncle took charge of him and had him taught the business of brewing.

In 1886, when well in his thirties, my father married and bought a little country brewery in Somerset. He always had a good reputation as a beer sampler, but he never drank beer, except for business reasons, or, maybe, after a round of golf. Port, fine vintage Port, was the wine that he loved and that he loved to give to all who, like himself, loved Port. My father never smoked, nor did he ever eat sweets until he was passed seventy; he had a very sure taste and he was quite as particular about the quality of his food as about that of his Port. He and the old doctor used occasionally to share a sheep which my father selected from a friend in Wales, and they saw to it that it was properly hung; as to poultry, my father would always choose it himself from one of the nearby farms. One of my cherished memories is watching, as a child, the slowly revolving spit in front of our kitchen fire. (My aged mother still maintains that she has never got used to the flavour of oven-cooked meat.) Another early memory is of going to see my father in his study, where he was sitting before the fire, after an illness, drinking a glass of his old doctor’s special tonic, Champagne. There were two half-bottles by his side, and he told me to fetch two glasses; he then gave me a little wine out of each bottle and asked me to tell him what I thought of the two wines. I happened to choose the one that he liked the better, which pleased him greatly, and he gave me a full glass of it to drink, whilst he impressed upon me the folly of drinking cheap wine, which to him, poor man as he was, meant bad wine. Years later, when I was at Oxford, and treasurer of my College Boat Club, I shared rooms with our Captain of boats. A presentation was being made to our President, Professor J. W―, who afterwards became Vice-Chancellor; he had been graciously pleased to accept an invitation to dinner from the three officers of the Boat Club, before the ceremony. Our landlord, an old family butler, was asked to provide a bottle of good Port, which he did at a cost of 7s. 6d., or a contribution of 2s. 6d. for each of the three hosts, During the vacation, my father, who always paid my bills, was scrutinizing my landlord’s accounts, when an item caught his eye which made him send for me.

‘What’s this?’ he said, ‘Port, 2s. 6d.?’

I explained the circumstances of the case, much to his relief, and he impressed once more upon me never to buy cheap wine, but keep to honest beer if I could not afford good wine. I have never forgotten that advice.

It was apparently soon after his marriage that my father began to lay down Port. His first purchase was the 1851, and he bought small supplies of every reasonably good vintage from that year till 1906.

In 1894 my father’s small brewery suffered the fate of many of the old country breweries: it was absorbed by a larger concern with better transport facilities. We went to live at Worcester, where my father was in partnership with a gentleman who had a larger brewery and a small wine business in charge of a certain Mr. Joceland. My father always had a very high regard for Mr. Joceland’s professional abilities, although they did not happen to be of the profit-making order. But the Worcester concern was soon absorbed in its turn by a larger one, and my father accepted an invitation to go back to Somerset, where an old, reverend friend .of his had suddenly found himself in the some what embarrassing position for a clergyman of owning a brewery and having to manage it by himself. I remember well my father and the old clergyman poring over the books in the office whilst my sisters and myself were picking over old letters for black penny stamps. The bishop insisted that the incumbent must choose between the parish and the brewery, so the brewery was sold and my father remained a partner it until he retired in 1918.

I went abroad after coming down from the University, so that I did not really see a great deal of my family, but there are a few amusing incidents which I can recollect about my father and his beloved Port.

When I was thirteen, we were invited to an entertainment which my aunt was giving in a little Somerset village. It was a very small village; there was my grandfather’s shooting box, where my aunt lived; there were two farm houses and an old Norman church. There was no inn for three miles, and good, old, raw cider satisfied the labourers’ needs in plenty. The entertainment was at the sixteenth-century Manor House, then the principal farm. At the interval, the audience and players divided for refreshments: the farmers and friends of my aunt to the dining room, the farm hands to the kitchen for cheese and cider. On the dining room table was a decanter of Port to which the Rector and my father helped themselves. They both sampled the wine and their eyes met.

‘Is the Port good?’ asked my aunt, adding: ‘I asked So-and-So to let me have the best they could.’

‘Excellent,’ said as one voice the Rector and my father. ‘Excellent. Where did you get it?’ And my father, turning to the Rector: ‘’47, I think.’ The Rector assented that it was very like it, although he could not be sure.

The next morning, on our way home, we called at the ‘Stores’ of the little market town, and my father bought the last two remaining bottles of the Port for 4s. per bottle, the grocer being very glad to hear that Miss W. had not been disappointed. Some months later, three men were sitting before the fire drinking Port: my father, Dr. Waugh and Arthur Waugh, the grandfather and the father of Alec and Evelyn Waugh. I was called in and told to bring a glass. ‘I know that you should be in bed at this hour,’ said my father, ‘but you may never again have the chance of tasting ’47 Port.’ I never did.

When we were living at Worcester, my father’s brother-in-law, who could afford the best there was, came to stay with us and asked my father’s help to add to his cellar. Old Joceland had just received a shipment of fine brandy and some of it was included in my uncle’s purchase. Some twenty years later I was staying with my parents at my uncle’s house, and, after dinner, the conversation turned to wine and my father asked how the brandy had turned out that had been bought at Worcester. The answer was surprising: my uncle said that he had not tasted it yet. Naturally a bottle was forthwith sent for, and presently a dirty old bottle was produced, bearing a large label with a bunch of grapes, and printed across it the words ‘Finest Old Brandy’. Soon all noses were in the glasses and for a time there was silence. I was the first to take a sip. I had never tasted anything like it, nor have I since. I can recall the glorious sensation of some liquid melting in my mouth and almost immediately after a glowing warmth running through my veins. There was just a faint suspicion of pineapple, only just, but enough to make me ask: ‘Rum?’ I had never tasted rum before.

It was some time before my father could solve the problem, but eventually he recalled that with the shipment of brandy, a present had come of a cask of exceptionally fine rum. Evidently some mistake had been made at the time of the labelling, but I do not think that anybody had any real cause to complain.

One morning, in 1922, my father decided that he must not drink Port again. He had hoped to outlive his stock of Port, but the Port had won. He handed over his cellar to me, as I happened to be home on leave from the East Indies. I protested that it would be a crime to move his Port from Somerset to Java, but he was anxious to remove temptation out of his way, and eventually it was decided that I should take away two bottles with me and report on their condition after they had crossed the Equator and been stored in the East. I took a bottle Of ’78 and one of ’84. They weathered the south-west monsoon; they travelled by train and then by car; finally they found a resting place in the coolest room of my eastern bungalow, the shower bathroom. It was a damp room, but it was airy and of comparatively even temperature, which never fell below 78 degrees and never rose above 86 degrees. [JDAW note: 25½–30°C.]

Early in 1924 an elderly gentleman called at my office with a letter of introduction. His card bore a name which was well known among London wine-merchants, and still is, but his call was not a professional one. I did the usual thing, suggested a drive at about 6.30 p.m. and a little dinner. That afternoon I remembered the Port and thought that it would be an excellent occasion to sample one of the two bottles which, by then, had had time to rest. I chose the ’84, and at 5.30 I decanted it carefully and left the decanter on my sideboard. Our guest refused all apéritifs and drank just a little white wine during dinner. Eventually I passed the Port. One does not get Port in Java, and it was quite obvious that our guest expected my Port to be very much the same as all the Port that he had probably tasted out East: a red fluid that goes round ‘with the sun’, a signal. that the meal is over and that the ladies are expected to leave the room. Our guest took half a glass out of politeness to his hostess and, according to honoured custom, my wife rose and left us. I passed the decanter again, and this time he filled up and, turning to me, said: ‘Thank you; I hardly expected to drink Jubilee Port in Java’. I told him that his guess was not far out, but that the wine was actually an ’84 vintage. ‘No,’ he said categorically, ‘you cannot deceive me. ’84 was no vintage and this is ’87.’ I produced the bottle and the cork, but he remained firm. ‘Anyhow,’ I said, ‘how do you think that the wine has stood the voyage and the climate?’ ‘It’s as good as in England,’ was his unhesitating verdict.

I wrote to my father and told him the result of opening his ’84. It made him quite angry. ‘How dare anyone insult my ’84’, he wrote back. ‘The ’84 Vintage was one of the finest of the century, even if there was precious little of it; many of the wine shippers missed it but covered themselves by boosting the ’87, just because it happened to be the year of the Queen’s Jubilee.’

It was on the first of January 1928 that I saw my father drink his last glass of Port at home. It was a ’78, the last of his wines, which were then mine to dispose of. I can see him now holding up his glass to the light and looking through it as if it had been a precious stone. It was a wine shipped by Martinez, a shipper to whom my father was always partial. Then he took a sip, paused, and looking at it again said: ‘What a wine. What a shame to drink it. That, my boy, will be a great wine when many younger wines have seen their prime.’
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Re: My Father Loved His Port (1939), G. B. Gloyne

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There might be typos, mis-capitalisations, or other errors of transcription. Tell me by PM rather than cluttering this thread with such dull things.
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Re: My Father Loved His Port (1939), G. B. Gloyne

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G. B. Gloyne, in My Father Loved His Port, wrote:‘The ’84 Vintage was one of the finest of the century, even if there was precious little of it; many of the wine shippers missed it but covered themselves by boosting the ’87, just because it happened to be the year of the Queen’s Jubilee.’
Really? Other writers seem to think that phylloxera was relevant, ’78 being the last of the great pre-phylloxera vintages, and ’96 the first of the great post-phylloxera vintages. I struggle to believe in the greatness of 1884.
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Re: My Father Loved His Port (1939), G. B. Gloyne

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It is theoretically possible both that 1884 was excellent and also that there was, because of phylloxera, not very much of it. As I understand it phylloxera predominantly affects quantity rather than quality.
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Re: My Father Loved His Port (1939), G. B. Gloyne

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G. B. Gloyne, in My Father Loved His Port, wrote:when I was at Oxford, and treasurer of my College Boat Club, I shared rooms with our Captain of boats. A presentation was being made to our President, Professor J. W―, who afterwards became Vice-Chancellor; he had been graciously pleased to accept an invitation to dinner from the three officers of the Boat Club, before the ceremony.
Wikipedia’s List of vice-chancellors of the University of Oxford narrows the search to Joseph Wells, 1855–1929, who was a classicist.
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