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A very good value cellar defender at the moment is Dow's Midnight @ £5.50/500mL from ASDA. This is a clean fresh fruity quaff - above par for its class.

Gonzalez Byass certainly, and T stoppered.

At the risk of being hailed a pessimist, this could quite easily be a bottle of standard ruby or tawny..

Well done Tony!

those horrible rubber things Although lacking elegance, these capsules are not so horrid when you know how to get them off. Attacking the cold plastic with a Stanley knife is a recipe for expletives, if not a casualty. However you only have to warm them slightly and they pop off with the greatest o...

That latter sounds like a 73cl bottle, not uncommonly used in the 60s and 70s in the wine trade. Does the Offley bottle it say 75cl on the label, or is it silent on volume? That's a new one on me - the label is silent, as you say. How on earth did they arrive at the figure of 73cL? I know they used...

This is a little exercise that I've been meaning to do for ages and have finally got round to - determining equivalent levels on Niepoort bottles. As we all know, it's very hard when looking at that swept neck to decide whether the level is IN or BN etc. Moreover, this is not an exact science as the...

Have you collected/separated data for different types of capsules, such as those horrible rubber things from the '60s? For example, I would expect that a full wax capsule would lose less weight over time than a simple tin capsule with no wax. The 1960s plastic capsules make a good seal, current ull...

Now over six years since I started weighing every port bottle that passes through my hands, I am beginning to gather some useful re-weighing data. I noticed a while back that my scales, which are marketed as 0.1g resolution, also have the ability to read in Grains, which are roughly 0.065g. I decide...

After bleaching, the cork on the ullaged bottled of crusted I brought along to drink through boldly proclaimed:

Henekeys Ltd
Crusted

- But no date..

but am equally happy to go shopping if needed

I can provide several bottles for adoption..

Many for whom 9th July fails. Tom: new date please.

I'm fairly flexible - does a week before or after change things significantly, or do we need to take it to September?

Tom: have you available anything not already being brought? (V, SW, Ts, Ch, EV, F, Cr, Sk, N.)

The easiest (as they are downstairs..) would be Cockburn, Gould Campbell or Kopke

Suggest adoptions of Dow and Warre to ensure we have all main players present if possible.

My stocks are in deeply buried owcs, so not readily available..

Have just noticed that I was first reserve - was invited in, but have noticed now that I am not on the list..

If anyone needs to adopt could they let me know ASAP please.

Unless someone else is bringing one, I will bring the Vesuvio

I didn't get to taste it on the day - it was quickly dismissed by others as corked and put to one side.

I took this bottle home with me and after leaving it stood up and stoppered for six months, have just sampled it.

I can detect a fair degree of oxidation, but no trace of TCA now..

How about semi blind and know the vintages Alternatively.. Suppose I simply present the bottles in alphabetical order of the shipper. Then, come the end of of the evening, we guess and reveal each bottle in turn. This would greatly narrow the possible shippers to guess from for each bottle. As we g...

Have just drafted a provisional list - I'm assuming people would like this to be blind.

To make it a little more fun, I've got 14 different vintages and 14 different producers..

Anyone care to volunteer a date?

Other than 'my glass is empty' what are the other standard justifications employed by TPF-ites for opening a bottle of port for one? I use a bit of software I wrote using Excel VBA to choose my next bottle, thus I can blame the 'puter when I open the next bottle. The computer looks each time for bo...

Most of my 94s are still in their owcs, but I have the following available ex rack:

Burmester
Calem
Cockburn
Ervamoira
Fonseca
Gould Campbell
Kopke
Martinez
Martinez Eira Velha
Romariz
Smith Woodhouse
Taylor
Vesuvio

Christopher wrote: ↑

22:12 Tue 07 May 2019

Tom my guest has dropped out so there is a free place I will put you down for if you are still free.

Splendid

Does Niepoort really belongs to the group of top Port producers?

In a word - yes.

They went through a rough patch during the 90's, but since Dirk Niepoort took over, both the ports and table wines have been superb.

I think the better vintage ports from the more robust vintages (not to be confused with declared years, which are not always that robust) will generally make it to a hundred years provided that they are: a) Cool cellared in fairly high humidity without day/night temperature fluctuations. b) Periodic...

All the samples I've tried of '17 so far have been really promising. Whilst Niepoort was generally reckoned to be the best of those offered at the BFT a couple of weeks ago, the smaller players were also showing very well. 2017 is going to be a vintage to lay down for the long haul - save a case for...