For The Love Of Port

Please keep this personal and stories about yourself. That way if others want to share their own faux pas, miscues or other blunders ... they can feel free to do so, or not. But come on, lighten up and share with us so we can all get a good laugh.

My most embarrassing moment, came during a weekend with great friends in late June of 2007. It was my 50th birthday weekend and an insane amount of wine was being opened and yes, then there was also a lot of Port opened nearly 40 bottles over a four day period. But that is no excuse for what took place.

In front of a houseful of guests, I take a bottle of this white Port out of the refrigerator and while everyone is sitting around in the room adjacent to our kitchen, I pour a glass. It struck me that this "juice" seemed really thick and because I was mid-sentence, didn't really have all synapses screaming "NO!!!!!!!" at me. I put it up to my nose and thought, jeez that doesn't smell right ... but kept on going. Well, I took a small sip and all of a sudden EVERYONE starts shrieking and howling with laughter. For in this bottle, that absolutely looked the color and label of a fine white Port ... was a SINGLE QUINTA's Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I wanted to die right then and there, but I am still here.

Not 100% offline but probably last year, during Niepoort's harvest time. DIrk did open a bottle of 1937 Colheita. I told him that it would be nice to share it with some stagiaires. He told me "Bring them a glass and the bottle" This is exactly what I did as 1/3 of the bottle was still remaining. Before doing so, I did pour myself a portion in my glass. When I came back, Dirk looked at me and said "hummm.... where is the bottle?" At first, he meant to bring the bottle to show them what they drink, not to let it there. So I had to run over in the lagares and explained to the stagiaires that it was my mistake and come back to Dirk with an almost empty bottle... He was not too happy But he understood why I did pour some before going there

Thanks for sharing Fred. I guess the others are just too embarrassed to do so.

Roy Hersh wrote:a SINGLE QUINTA's Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Was it Vargellas or Crasto?

My great party-trick at offlines is falling asleep. I have nodded off many times before the night is over but I always blame the bad jokes for putting me to sleep

Travelling 500 kms to Boston , bringing the bottles of Ferreira to Sean's place and not getting to taste one !!