For The Love Of Port

But doing a limited confession on a TV show isn't exactly the best of ways to go about looking for sympathy IMO. What's the general perception of Marion Jones now? Did Oprah work for her? My gut feeling is that Lance / his lawyers have assessed the various suits that are potentially outstanding aga...

I disagree - things must be pretty bad for Lance right now - he might be hoping that a confession gives him a Clintonesque popularity rebound, he might be wanting to throw a few other people under the bus (possibly because he's angry, possibly because he wants to engineer a triathlon comeback), and/...

In the USA, Adventures in Wine is offering 30 ex-cellars (direct) bottles of 1977 Warre's VP in Tappit Hen (210 ml bottles), which are directly from the Sym cellars and these are supposedly the only remaining 30 bottles. This is also reported as the ONLY time this has ever been "sold on the ma...

The brand that routinely commands the top price for VP on the secondary market is Taylor, but not by a huge margin. 92 and 94 vintages of Taylor aside (& Nacional), does Fonseca edge it for post-war vintages? Taylor still seems to be the go-to port in the UK for a non-port aficionado who wants ...

Some 77 Dow Tappit Hens were released into Hong Kong recently as well (200 bottles or so, i think)

Together with all those large format bottles they auctioned at Amsterdam, they seem to have been releasing quite a few old rarities recently...

But if you look at the requirements, a Tawny Reserve is just a more specific case of a Reserve. Stated another way, all Tawny Reserves also meet all of the stated requirements to be a Reserve. Not all Reserves, however, meet the requirements to be called a Tawny (or White) Reserve. So if you have a...

I agree entirely re: your point on ageing of filtered ports. I suppose my point was more focused on ageing under t-stopper more generally - and the fact that the only 20+ year old t-stoppered ports i've ever had were ports not actually intended for ageing (e.g.: tawnies with indication of age and fi...

I've drunk ports which have had T-stoppers from the 1960s and 1970s. In general, the ones from the 1960 have been very faded, the ones from the 1970s quite light and developed. From my experience, I would not look to age port in bottles with T-stoppers for more than about 20 years from the harvest ...

Rob, As I noted before, "Tawny Reserve" is a subset of just plain "Reserve" in the regulations. Reserve encompasses a very broad spectrum of all Port, whereas Tawny Reserve and White Reserve are specialized sub categories. There is no special sub category for Ruby Reserve. That'...

Andreas Nielsen wrote:1) How should I store a bottle with a t-stopper (standing or lying down)?

I can't answer your second question, but i have never had any problem with storing t-stoppered ports on their side (including several t-stoppered Taylor LBVs from the 60s)

A similar bottle, albeit with a bottling date of 1938 clearly stated, on GN.

There's a close-up of the back label which might be informative if anyone possesses good portuguese skills.

By email response from Sogrape The Dona Antonia Reserve ages in wood for a minimum of 7 years and is approved by IVDP as Tawny Reserve. However, traditionally we have decide just to mention Reserve, since it is not mandatory to use the descriptive Tawny and allows us to enhance the name Dona Antonia...

Cynthia - by "modern" do you mean filtered?

Interesting that the 2007 "modern" LBV has already released whereas the 2000 "modern" LBV appears to have been given a lot more time in wood (bottled in 2006)

From now on i'll be removing the cap on these before i stand to rest It's generally a good idea to take all capsules off as you stand the bottles up. Why so? I don't find i have issues with disturbing sediment when removing capsules other than the rubber capsules mentioned above. Plus the number of...

The white version in your picture is definitely unfiltered and bottle matured

The black label version is presumably filtered (? nothing on label), but given the extra one/two years in wood and looks to be released soon after bottling (2005 has been in UK stores for at least 18 months)

It would be a shame if SW was moving away from their great methodology of four years in wood and then an additional four years of bottle aging prior to release. [shrug.gif] I would hope that is not happening - the Symingtons still seem to make contemperaneous releases of both unfiltered and filtere...

Andy Velebil wrote: The visual clutter....

Switching between the two versions, this is what i dislike most about the new version as against the clean and simple layout of the old version.

I'd agree - the glass/ bottle shape does not look 1950s to me. The motif on the label with the crest and squiggly lines was only introduced to VP bottle labels for the 85 vintage and were phased out after the 1997 vintage (i think), my best guest would be 1986/7ish - 2000/01ish, but I could well bel...

Currently, some research is being conducted to check whether using stronger wine spirit to fortify the must (+90% instead of 77%) would have similar effects on Port quality. To reach spirit with 77% abv the starting level is near by 100% and then water is added to dilute the spirit. So, is this wat...

I'd have to go with the 1992 SW LBV that we brought to the FTLOP anniversary event. It was so unexpectedly awesome - even next to the 92 Taylor, 92 Fonseca and 94 Taylor. The best buy, not in the way of the best bargain, but in the way of showing some friends how a good port (other than the superma...