For The Love Of Port

This means that Skeffington varies considerably in style from vintage to vintage and is unusual in that it is not tied to any particular set of vineyards. TFP often use this house to supply the buyer's own label market (Tanner's 2011 vintage port is Skeffington, for example) and it can represent a ...

Not sure it can quite compete with these, but here's a contender that has hit the news in the UK over the last couple of days! link to story

So likely $150-ish for Vesuvio Capela, Graham Stone Terraces, and Taylor Vargellas Vinha Velha if they even get them. /sigh The "all-in" price for TVVV in the UK came out at about £140 per bottle. For Stone Terraces it was about £100 per bottle all-in. Capela was somewhat cheaper at just ...

I've only had the Fonseca Guimaraens and the Fonseca Val de Mendiz bottlings - i didn't even know there was a full blend Fonseca as well that year...

Having done a few of these over the last couple of years....I would add one piece of advice: for at least one or two of your ports, choose a bottle that your attendees have at least a chance of ordering online or (even better) purchasing in a local shop for themselves with relative ease and at a rea...

I'm a bit shocked that it was at my high bid on both. I'm not...just about every bid i have ever won with Strakers has ended up being bang-on my "high bid"....if it was a London-based auction, i'd definitely go in person rather than leaving remote bids. On the BBR Dow 66, i went a couple ...

10 x 1963 Grahams Vintage Port 12 x 1970 Ferreira Vintage Port I bid on, but didn't win the 12 x 1966 Dow's bottled by Berry Bros & Rudd. I'm disappointed in that, but I'll live! Still looking for nice bottles of this particular port. These are my first bottles of Ferreira VP in my collection! ...

John Vachon wrote:open and decant and serve-rotate in the glass to develop.

I must admit, while swirling in the glass might help to open a port up a bit, i'm not convinced that i've experienced this method replicating the effect of a nice long decant.

including the Graham's Stone Terraces £480 per case. Case: 6 × Bottle (750ml). Ouch. But nowhere near the premium Nacional commands vs. the regular Noval VP, although I'm sure they'd like to get to that point. Still a good deal cheaper than TVVV though, which is probably a closer comparison. Observ...

Luisa Borges let me know that her family's quinta has also declared 2011 VP. :clap: :clap: :clap: Which quinta is this? The company is Roncao Pequeno (website link ) with a quinta of the same name as well as "Quinta do Fojo Velho" and "Quinta da Fonte" (the latter used for white...

Christian, Thanks for the link! I guess this is akin to Nacional, being from a selected parcel(s) of land and kept seperately. Interestingly, other snippets on the Malvedos blog indicate that both parcels are almost wholly Touriga Nacional with just a few old "field bend" vines in the mix...

TFP are also producing a Skeffington

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Confraria bottlings were a mix of contributions from different shippers in years where a critical mass of shippers had declared...can't recall where now...Mayson perhaps?

For what it's worth - link here was an interesting write-up on the Malvedos blog on glasses that generated quite a bit of comment at the time either here or on another forum (though admittedly the tasting was hosted by Riedel and their Portuguese distributors (the Symingtons), so not a full range of...

I'm a fan of this port and recent experience (from stock that was ex-VNdG cellars in 2011) is that it is quite advanced for a 92 and - while longer may be better - 4 hours should be fine for it to show well.

No Gould Campbell, Quarles Harris nor Martinez. These ports are typically made with the grapes bought in from Douro farmers, primarily in the Pinhão and Rio Torto valleys. Wow...breaks GC's run of every major vintage since 1955 (ok..a 91 but no 92...) and no Martinez VP since 2007... I'm amazed at ...

Probably still at least a decade too early for me to make a definitive judgement, but i have had nice bottles from both vintages (including some surprising ones - for example, de la Rosa '91 and Delaforce '92 have both been unexpected triumphs at blind tastings over the last 24 months) However, in 4...

If going on true "single quinta" basis, i'm going to throw my hat in the ring for Vesuvio on a QPR basis. For current drinking i particularly like the 98, but the 96 is also rather good (if a bit less open and expressive than the 98 right now and more obviously "too young") and c...

Sounds like a good job! Speaking of rejections, about 10% of the wines are discarded, the main reason being they were submitted to the wrong category. When this happens, the producer has the opportunity to resubmit the wine for certification in a different category (often a lesser one, from LBV to r...

How much consensus would there need to be within the trade in order to push through the necessary changes in IVDP regulations?