Lots of new faces ... please introduce yourself

[Andy Velebil]

Jim,

Welcome to I am truly glad you found us, we are a fun easy going group of Port lovers who enjoy sharing our collective knowledge with others. Since your from Mass., you should know that two of our regular members are from there also (Moses Botbol and Sean C.) so they can give you some advice on where in your state to find some great deals since shipping Port into Mass. is a bit of an issue still.

As for your question, I don't know how old you are so I would recommend a mix of younger stuff and older stuff. Say some stuff from the 1980's which can be found under $100/bottle and most newer stuff can be found for around $70ish and under. Moses is great for finding deals in the Boston area.

Again welcome to

[Jim Butler]

Actually, as far as shipping goes, we had some good news here in the Commonwealth yesterday that Moses posted regarding shipping into the state. The court struck down the law that prohibited that, so hopefully things will change for us in the near future.

Jim

[Roy Hersh]

Jim,

Free the grapes in MA. Great news of course, but when will the damn neo-Prohibitionists keep their grubby hands off of the shipping laws and focus on an area that has real economic impact?

It is nice to have you join us and I very much enjoyed your recounting of the story of the generosity of the woman who poured you the nice and last of her 30 year old Tawny as a friendly gesture. We hope you will ask many fine questions like the one you posed above. Let me see if I can help you out:

I would look to get a great case or so of Vintage Ports with your $1000 and here are single bottle suggestions to fill it up:

a. 1994 Vesuvio
b. 1980 Dow
c. 1983 Graham's
d. 1985 Fonseca
e. 1987 Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas
f. 1991 Croft
g. 1992 Niepoort
h. 1977 Gould Campbell
i. 1997 Churchill's
j. 2000 Quinta do Noval
k. 2003 Quinta do Portal
l. 1995 Ferreira

That would give you 12 distinct young vintages, with no producers repeated ... some with over 30 years of age, all very good or better, availability should not be hard for any of them and the price ... well, you should be able to even have some spare change left over after having them shipped to you. You could hold quite a "diagonal" tasting of Port there in MA. In the meanwhile, hook up with our two MA brethren who will enlighten you with the finest of Ports. Just make sure that either you spit or practice the "art" of over indulgence.

Best regards and welcome for For The Love Of Port.

I hope you will enjoy our company here at with the sharing of great ideas, practical knowledge and thought provoking questions like yours!

[Eric Menchen]

I would look to get a great case or so of Vintage Ports with your $1000 and here are single bottle suggestions to fill it up:
a. 1994 Vesuvio
b. 1980 Dow
c. 1983 Graham's
...

Too bad I already sent my Christmas list to Santa. That would have filled it.

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Hello there,

Im Pedro Guimaraes (the one that posts in Jamie's :) ).

Im glad to be aboard and hope to learn/exchange experiences from/with all of you. I've been collecting wine since 10 years ago and i mainly focus on Portuguese table wine and a bit of French (Burgundy, Rhone, Bordeaux). Also a fan of German, Austrian and Alsacian wines and.....Barolo and Barbaresco.

Im going to say something which will make Roy jump :).....Im more into Madeira than Port!!!!!! That said im not an expert in either.....but from these two my "heavenly moment in fortified" came with a beautiful sublime Terrantez. I have to say that im usually "shocked" with the lack of attention Madeira wine gets....i often see it as the "forgotten granny in the sofa by the fire"...eveyone is "familiar" with her but none really pays her much attention.... :)

My favourite producers (botles) in Douro (table wines) are:

Gouvyas Vinhas Velhas
Poeira
Campo Ardosa RRR

and to a smaller extent...Quinta dos Macedos and Abandonado(Domingos Alves de Sousa).

These are the ones i never miss and aparently offer something that i really like to see in a Wine....longevity!!!!

For Port...

I usually go for Taylor's, DOW's or Fonseca Guimaraens (just beause of the name) for vintage and LBV. In terms of Tawnies or Colheitas i've been having some really nice experiences with Burmester....drank the other day the Burmester Colheita Novidade 1922 that compltly blew me away!!!!

Madeira wise....

I love Terrantez grape....so sorry its almost gone!!!!!

Feel free to contact me and hope to hear from all of you

All the best,

Pedro Guimaraes

[Andy Velebil]

Pedro,

Great to have you with us here at . Thanks for the introduction and I look forward to hearing more from you in the future. Glad you love Madeira, there are some very knowledgable people here on the subject and are a great resource to tap, so please feel free to do so.

I can see why you like Fonseca G. besides being a good Port its a good name too Please post often and I do have one question...I assume you are from Portugal?

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for having me...and yes im Portuguese though spending a lot of time in Prague(CZ)...woman issue

I'll be around,

Greetings,

Pedro Guimarães

[Roy Hersh]

Pedro,

Leave it to those Czech women!

I enjoyed your introduction here and as mentioned in the other thread ... had a feeling you were the same guy from Jamie's Blog. Anyway, you and I think alike when it comes to Madeira. Terrantez is my favorite grape too and if I was to have one bottle of wine before I died, or had to pick one for a dessert island last stand, it would be the 1802 Terrantez by Acciaioly, without any question. Of course I am also pretty partial to Port, but variety of Portuguese fortified is the spice of life ... including the great Moscatel(s) de Setubal which I've been enjoying for 14 years.

Interesting you mention the Abandonado. I had it while in Portugal and was really very impressed and as soon as I returned, made a quick call and scored a case. The 2004 is fantastic, although not inexpensive by any means. Lots of great wines to try and hopefully on one of my trips to Portugal we'll get to meet and drink some nice bottles together!

Welcome to and I hope you will find this a very worthy place to share your knowledge and curiosity. We're glad that you have come to join us in exploring the great Ports and Douro DOC wines of the Douro and Madeira.

Melhores cumprimentos.

[Nuno Esteves]

Hello everybody.

My name is Nuno and I live in Portugal, Lisboa.

It is a bit odd to join an American forum to get to know more (i just started to realize how much more!) about... Portuguese wines, but hey! Knowledge has no borders I guess.

I usually have some bottles of Port and Madeira around, but I think it will be interesting to know more about these superb drinks.

And if someone needs some local support, just ask :)

See you around!

[Roy Hersh]

Hi Nuno,

It is not strange at all and besides has many people who are posting here from Portugal and a few hundred who are on our mailing list and lurking here reading from your country! I can assure you there are many thousands of visits per month to this site that are from Portugal, whether from the Port trade or just those that enjoy reading about Port, Madeira and Douro wines.

I used to belong to a wine forum in Portugal (Rui Falcao's os5as8) even though your English is far superior to my Portuguese. It was great when it was really lively and I participated there because I loved the different perspective of those living in country.

We're thrilled to have you join us here and I am very pleased that you've decided to post too. We look forward to having you share some of your insights into the wines that we all love.

I am sure others will stop by to welcome you too. We can never have enough friends here from Portugal, that is for sure!

[Andy Velebil]

Nuno,

Welcome to it is great to have here with us. One can never learn too much about Port and this is the perfect place to learn and share your knowledge with others. A great awaits you as the people here are truly superb and quite fun to. I'm sure over time many people will be using your knowledge of Portugal to help them get around. After all Portugal is refered to here as "The mother land"

[Micky Jensen]

Hello All :)

Name´s Micky, age 34, and from Denmark. I work in the IT-industry as a programmer.

I was a Whisky aficionado for quite some years, and had some great trips to Scotland (Islay mainly), until I encountered some good portwine a couple of years ago. This happened together with 3 of my closest friends, which only made it spiral much faster as we kept talking about it and introducing each other to marvelous new port, and then also went to see Oporto last year. We had an awesome week there, with everything from a personal Martinez tasting (courtesy of a Wine dealer here), to a trip to Pinhao, and "just having a bottle near the river, while the rain clears" which turned into an all-nighter where we met some fun new people and made friends with the owners of the small shop.

So basically, we are all hooked, and loving it!

We havent been as much around the block as many of you guys (yet). It is mainly Tawnies and Colheitas we have been trying out, with the odd Vintage in between. Some of the best we tried, must have been at Vinologia in Oporto, where we had a 40+ year tasting. I will be bringing my "Sao Pedro, Plus de 40 Ans" for this New years, which was one of those we first experienced there.

Anyways, it seems like a genuinely nice crowd in here, and I am looking forward to becoming a part of it all :)

[Andy Velebil]

Micky,
Welcome to I am really glad you joined us in the eternal quest for more Port Your trip sounds like it was a blast. I was just in the Douro, Gaia, and Oporto with the rest of the Harvest Trip particpants this past October and we had a great time. Vinalogia is one of the top places that we love. Jean Philippe and his step-son Gustavo have a great Port bar. I don't know if you noticed or if anyone mentioned it, but the building across the street from the front door of Vinalogia is The Factory House, a legand in the history of Port.

If you think you're friends give some peer pressure to buy and drink Port, wait till this group gets a hold of you. You will be spending all your spare cash and time reading, drinking, and sleeping Port Again, It's great that you've joined us and I really appreciate the introduction.

[Roy Hersh]

Micky,

So you come here all alone? Where are the other 3 guys? Twist their arms to join you!

We have quite a few subscribers and even a few Forum participants who drop in on occasion from Denmark and surrounding countries. One of these days, I'll get myself over there to visit too.

Vinologia is fabulous and I would love to own a Seattle outpost of that shop here!

Many of us love Colheitas and Tawnies too and drink lots of them in addition to Vintage Port. We have many beginners on the site, numerous intermediates and enough well seasoned Port enthusiasts that we can share lots of common ground and all learn together!

Thanks for joining us and I look forward to having you (and maybe some of your friends) stop on by to discuss Port with us. We seemingly never get tired of the topic!

[Micky Jensen]

Haha,

Thanks guys! :)

Well, I didnt come here alone, as it was actually one of the other guys who told me about this site. But I think I was the first that signed up on the forum here, but I will twist their arms this evening, as I am lucky enough to be spendin g New years with them, so we can indulge in port while the girls do.. whatever girls do when men get into the port

I will most likely sign up as a subscriber within the following month as well, seeing the praise the newsletter is getting, and just because i am so overwhelmed at the collected information here.

Speaking of Vinologia, I am ashamed not to recall the guys name, who was in charge of most of our tastings there, as it was just on a whim. But I will try and find out. He was the one who surprised us with the "Dalva Golden White 1952 white Colheita", when we were having our 40+ Tawny tasting. I was so stunned, that I brought a bottle with me home, though I havent opened it yet..

And I have no doubt that I will have an even greater urge to spend all my *cough* hard-earned *cough* cash on Port after being here a while. I mean.. yesterday I was actually checking out flight prices for Seattle for the Galla-event, though I am afraid its a bit to close to this expensive Christmas month, even though it actually was a lot less expensive to fly there than I thought

[Andy Velebil]

Mickey,

Twist those guys arms and when the boys go out drinking Port the girls like to go out and buy shoes, lots of shoes :help:

Yes the '52 Dalva is a stunner and it gets mentioned here a lot. Sadly it has all been bottled this year so what is out there is all thats left of that precious nectare. And one I stocked up on at my last visit to Vinalogia, YES!

I've been to Denmark once about 12 years ago during my University days, when I was doing the whole backpack around Europe thing. I wasn't planning on going, but was on a train and speaking to a couple of locals in Germany about where a good out of the way place to go was and they mentioned Silkeborg.The next day I ended up there right during the town's big summer festival. The locals were so friendly and the place was so beautiful I fell in love with Denmark and it remains my favorite country of all that I've visited over the years (ok, I guess I have to exclude the Mother Land of Portugal ). Of course all the locals probably thought I was crazy as a bit of a wind was blowing and I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Kinda funny when I was told they were in the midst of a heat wave at the time and everyone else was sweating. I had to explain I was from Los Angeles and when I left for Europe it was 105 degrees (40.5 celcius), so for me it was a little cool

[Morten]

Hello there

My name is Morten and hail from Copenhagen, Denmark

I work as a senior web developer in a company called Dwarf (which is kind of a paradox since I'm 2.03 meters tall )

I'm a friend of Micky and was the one to introduce the FTLOP website to him and the two others in our little port club :) I've enjoyed port for quite a few years now, but never gave much thought as what to look out for - I mainly went for the more expensive bottles in my local supermarkets as I thought they tasted better than the normal ruby they had. When I actually started having a "real" interest in port and not swilling it down because it tasted good eludes me, but it must have been a couple of years ago. I visted Oporto the first time back when I was 19 or so - and the I still recall a bottle sitting in a little sidestreet shop - very dusty and with the number 1922 on it - must have been my first sight of a vintage (though I can't imagine it being drinkable since it'd been standing there in the sun for what must have been a long long time).

Besides port, I share a passion for whisky just as Micky do - and belgian beer too.

Looking forward to having many interesting conversations here about my favorite hobby :)

Regards and a Happy New Year
Morten

[Andy Velebil]

Morten,
It's really great to have you sign up too and join us here at I look forward to yours and Micky's involvement here on the forum in what is a great place to learn about Port/Madeira/ and Portuguese wines. Sounds like you've had some good Ports along the way if you were buying the more expensive stuff at the market, a good way to go if you ask me As for the bottles in Oporto, sadly, as you discovered, some bottles are not well stored in retail shops....placed in windows facing the sun, lack of air conditioning in the summer, and standing up right for many years...not to mention high prices to boot. But there are some great shops there too, so whenever you head back please mention it and people can point you to the good ones.

Again, I would like to welcome you to and I'm really glad you have signed up.

[Micky Jensen]

I've been to Denmark once about 12 years ago during my University days, when I was doing the whole backpack around Europe thing. I wasn't planning on going, but was on a train and speaking to a couple of locals in Germany about where a good out of the way place to go was and they mentioned Silkeborg.The next day I ended up there right during the town's big summer festival. The locals were so friendly and the place was so beautiful I fell in love with Denmark and it remains my favorite country of all that I've visited over the years (ok, I guess I have to exclude the Mother Land of Portugal ). Of course all the locals probably thought I was crazy as a bit of a wind was blowing and I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Kinda funny when I was told they were in the midst of a heat wave at the time and everyone else was sweating. I had to explain I was from Los Angeles and when I left for Europe it was 105 degrees (40.5 celcius), so for me it was a little cool

Sounds like you had a good time here. Well, if you ever come back, I am sure we can find a nice fireplace somwehere, and open a couple of nice bottles, instead of all that icky outdoors stuff

We are all located in Copenhagen (the Capital), except for one guy, who moved to Fyn. So we go there to visit the "countryside", and host our viking-inspired parties every couple of years

Got one more of the guys to join, now I just need the last 2 slackers..

[Ole Hansen]

Greetings from Denmark,

Hello, i'm Ole Hansen,33 another friend(going on 15 years) of Micky and Morten from Denmark. We're a mighty fine bunch of port-lovers i you ask me, and we're friendly too.

I too work in the IT-business, as a consultant primarily in healthcare solutions.

I was first introduced to port about 8 years ago, by a business partner. Well, back then i didn't really get the idea and just thought he was weird. Luckily that turned about a year and a half ago, and today i am a declared port-lover.

I like collecting port, and recently had goose-bumbs when i purchased a 1908 Niepoort Colheita(does anyone know if it is drinkable?). This may not impress the hardcore port collector, but i still think it is cool you can buy a wine that predates WW1. And hey, you have to start somewhere.

I like even more to drink port, which makes the collecting part challenging, and i've tasted some really good wines so far. But when i read about tastings here on this board it is clear to me that the world of port has so much more in store for me.

Its nice to meet so many like-minded people who share a common passion.

Thanks to Roy for answering our questions, and for moderating this board.

I look forward to discuss port with you all and hopefully share a bottle or two on a tour to porto.