ThePortForum.com

The few bottles that I have been able to purchase without Selos are in no way cellar defenders - they have all be very old tawny Ports, often bottles straight from cask, that I will cherish and savor at significant occasions. I would say that it is very unusual to be able to purchase a "younger" Por...

DrewD83 wrote: ↑

11:42 Thu 31 Oct 2019

Which houses would you recommend for the ‘85 vintage?

Fonseca and Graham are easily the two best for me. They're followed by Dow, Smith Woodhouse, Taylor, Gould Campbell, and Churchill.

It's more than a bit confusing when different people give quite different scores. Those who score are no more than people, too. Educated and experienced people, but still just people like everyone else. We all have different tastes, which results in different scores. For any wine critic's scores to...

Hello and welcome. I’ve no interest in this bottle, but I’ll make a helpful observation. The prices you’ve quoted are the optimistic prices at which some wine merchants hope to sell. Which can be far above any measure of a fair achievable price. Which, for this, I’d expect to be high double-digits....

We did a "full vertical" of Stone Terraces this past Spring before the 2017 was declared, and my article on it appeared in the FTLOP newsletter.

It was splendid.

a bottle of Port is

Have to disagree with you gents; I'd take G77 over any of G80/G83/G85, and by no small margin. Over G85? Uh... no. :wink: I'd slot it in the middle somewhere. It's nowhere close to as good as G85 to me, and my recent experiences with G83 have been better than my most recent experiences with G77 (wh...

In the US, 1977 Graham's is available for $105 from The Chicago Wine Company and for only slightly more than that from 3 more reputable sources. So I think your $125 retail estimate is on the high side. That said, Phil's estimate of 50-60% of retail is more appropriate in the UK than in the US. Here...

In some sense, I use 40yo Tawny Port as a cellar defender because my cellar contains so much very old Tawny Port. When your "next" option is something from the 1960s, 1950s, or 1940s, a mere 40yo starts to look like a frugal choice. On the ruby side, it's by value for me. I have some very inexpensiv...

Although my data sets for young bottles are limited, initial indications suggest that freshly bottled port with driven corks loses around one Grain per annum, whereas freshly T-stoppered bottles can be as little as half that.. This is very interesting. I presume it is due to the fact that a t-stopp...

If Phil is wrong, that's an astounding coincidence.

My favorite is Ramos Pinto because it includes a tour of their old office building which is now a museum. Others have added museums to their tours, but none are as large as the big yellow building on the waterfront. It's best to stop by Ramos Pinto earlier in the day to sign up so that you can reser...

All forums should be required to have this feature. This is brilliant.

.... Also no Gould Campbell and no Smith Woodhouse, but for other (more dire) reasons. The no Gould Campbell was certainly an other more dire reason. Smith Woodhouse not so dire I thought - that brand still lives on in the SFE portfolio. They made a SW16 so hopefully you are correct. FWIW GC also s...

winesecretary wrote: ↑

12:19 Sat 08 Jun 2019

1982, which is on the IVDP list...

I've never heard of 1982 being considered a general declaration. 1980, 1983, and 1985.

I have occasionally heard reference to 1982 being a split declaration, but that makes little sense in that 1983 is widely regarded as a general declaration.

I think it is very difficult to reconcile that traditional practice with today's population of Port producers as 80% of them are single quintas so are likely to produce a VP in almost every year. We are therefore left with a small group of companies who make a different wine in great years to deter...

I'll have to do some digging to find when things changed (assuming they actually have), but my understanding is that this new trend was very recent - after the 2013 post. It might have been 2015? It was a surprise to me when I heard about it.

My understanding is that the IVDP does now "declare" a vintage, and that 2015 was not declared. Many were very disappointed that 2015 was not declared, and the reasons why it was not declared are probably best left to a different topic, but ultimately neither TFP nor SFE fully declared 2015 so it is...

I would say that the bottle's primary (and perhaps only) value comes from the fact that it's an oddity. As Andy said, Valente, Costa & Co was not highly regarded then and is basically unknown now. 1927 was a very good year for Port, but the low shoulder fill says that this bottle is probably not in ...

June is a fantastic month to visit Porto. Just avoid São João as Alex said and you'll have a great time. The weather is more reliable in June than in May.

Bacchus Vini in Porto pretty much right next to the Dom Luis I bridge, and Maria Fonseca (the manager) takes good care of us every time we visit!

Well, they're smaller than either TFP or SFE which is what I was referring to.

Thanks Glenn and Tom so far for your answers. Does Niepoort realy belongs to the group of top Port producers? I read a couble of decanter issues in the past a normally Niepoort does not belong to there group of top producers. And also Glenn did not add Niepoort in his answer of good producers. But ...

General declarations in reverse order: 2017, 2016, 2011, 2007, 2003, 2000, 1997, 1994, (1991/1992), 1985, 1983, 1980, 1977, 1975, 1970, 1966, 1963, 1960... As you can see, there have been roughly 3 general declarations per decade for at least the last 50 years. (1991/1992 was what is known as a spli...

The Ports have just been declared and so are not yet available for purchase. That said, many people here are tried them and can probably provide you with advice. From what I have heard, 2017 is an exceptional vintage and the Ports produced will be very high quality. My guess based on current reviews...