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Decanted easily off a lot of very fine - almost crystalline - sediment. A dark red in colour, with a mahogany brown rim. Plenty of raspberry fruit on the nose, mixed with lavender perfume. A little bland initially in the mouth; sweet, but balanced acidity; fruit, but very restrained; tannic, but the...

Decanted through filter paper, with only very fine sediment doing not much more than blocking the pores of the paper and staining everything a grainy purple. Deep and impenetrable in colour, still an intense and almost black tone of purple, totally youthful still. Sweet grapes and a white pepper on ...

Whilst away on holiday I came across a little wine shop with an impressive selection and decent prices. I came back from holiday with Smith Woodhouse 1999 LBV, Silval 2000 and bottles of Noval 1994, 2003 and 2004.

So have we settled on TCP as the venue and Something from the '70s as the theme?

All, The original idea in the other thread was to try to figure out which is the best shipper. It seems two approaches have been proposed - to ask TF and S to bring along their champions, or to bring the generally-accepted best years (63, 66, 70, 77) of Taylor/Fonseca/Croft versus Graham/Dow/Warre....

OK. I confess. My picks were:

Down to Earth (Rainbow)
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
Hotel California (Eagles)

Planet Rock radio are running a competition to identify the greatest albums ever released. For fun, I would encourage everyone to take a look and throw in some votes. You could even list here what you have voted for. I voted for The London Philarmonic's version of Beethoven's Fifth, conducted by Her...

There's a nice little gap in the bass guitar case for a Riedel glass when I need to play bass and have a glass of port handy. I was also surprised at the relatively low score for the '94, and also the '97 - but perhaps these two are finally shutting down? While I don't think that I have rated the '8...

I suspect that the Vinha Velha is a typing error. I I get the chance tomorrow, I might phone Berrys and enquire.

Or I might wait until the night - I will be there! Although pricey evenings, I feel they are value for money for the location, the wines and the chance to chat to interesting people.

How about a Port On The Rocks? I was in the US some time ago and was given a glass of overly warm tawny port that just smelt of alcohol. An ice-cube later and it was much more enjoyable.

Another update has been made to the offline summary.

I'm just in the process of updating my offlines summary - did this offline take place in the end?

As requested, here is a picture of the colour of the wine - very respectable for a 20-30 year old bottle of Noval LB. Interestingly, I think the wine is actually drinking better today than it did on the day it was first opened. There is a lovely spiciness to it today that was not part of the flavour...

Just bought 12 Smith Woodhouse 2000 for hiding away in a dark place for many years

In the 2007 declarations thread, Ronnie asked if anyone knew why the Pisca is not being bottled until later in the year. I don't remember where I heard it, but I think that the Pisca is another of Dirk's experiments to make a vintage port which is a selection of grapes, made to age over the long ter...

Some photos to show the amount of sediment coming from the bottle. Unfortunately, they don't really show the size of the pile of the sludge on the filter paper.

SW1 was created in 1917, as a means of continuing to keep the post in London moving when the men who used to run the post offices were enlisted into the army. But at some point in the second half of the 1900s, the more crowded of the numbered London districts were subdivided further through the addi...

I believe that I once read somewhere that the IVDP records are available for public research. I presume that this must be by appointment and would likely require at least a serviceable knowledge of Portuguese. However, I do not have an email address for them - I would suggest a far more practical te...

I like the idea of an Olympic Offline in 2012 - but would not consider it necessary to try and have a bottle from every vintage year. I think it would be perfectly acceptable to simply say that every wine must come from a vintage which was an Olympic year. I've also said in the Offline thread that I...

Would a friendly admin please snip this thread at an appropriate point to leave the tasting note intact but put the conversation about possible themes into the "Organising Offlines" forum?

Thank you.

I do like the idea of a 1982 horizontal as I have tasted very few of this vintage and have the usual biased view where I dismiss them all.

However, we drank my only 1982 vintage port at the Vargellas tasting. I will also have to adopt unless I happen to come across a suitable bottle.

Bill,

Enjoy your visit and vacation. Sadly, unless you can pop up to London from Northern Spain, we are unlikely to meet this trip.

Alex

This was a bottle of unknown age, the only clues to age being the name of the importer (Rutherford Osborne & Perkin of SW1V 4TG, who were dissolved in December 1995), their postcode and the fact that it was a subdivided SW1 code, and the fact that the bottle was a three piece moulded bottle (the...

I opened a bottle tonight of Noval LB port. This being a Reserve Ruby, I have no way of dating the bottle other than from the stencilling, which says that the bottle was imported by Rutherford Osbone & Perkin Ltd, London SW1V 4TG. Rutherford Osborne & Perkin was dissolved as a company on Dec...

I'd certainly be interested to find out what a good bottle of this can offer. Yes please!