The Christmas offline 2010

[Alex Bridgeman]

Wouldn't the Scion be refused at the Xmas offline for not being vintage port?

It would have to appear at one of Jacob's Brown & Sticky offlines.

[Deleted_User_1]

You must agree It clearly qualifies as 'peculiar'though

[JacobH]

...a "peculiar" this year!

<<gulp>>

Hopefully it's not a bottle of Taylor's first vintage Rose...

Would a Taylors 1855 Scion be classed as 'peculiar' or 'unknown'??....I have had the stuff under my nose but it was snatched away before it touched my lips ...for an extra £166 each we could try this juice...any takers??

Well, I would have thought that there were enough uncertainties for this bottle to allow it to fall into the ‟unknown” category!

Wouldn't the Scion be refused at the Xmas offline for not being vintage port?

I always thought that, despite our expectations, a feature of the Christmas offlines was the pretty good performance of the non-vintage Ports: wasn’t an Andresen 1969 in the top three last year and a Cálem White Colheita in the top two the year before?

[Alex Bridgeman]

Now you're just being awkward, using facts to disprove my argument.

[WS1]

Hi there,

here some boring admin stuff; we will have only 1 special guest and hence we have two further free spaces:

uncle Tom
WS1
DRT
Axel P
Chris Doty
AHB
1 special guests
KillerB
Cookie
JacobH
Alex Moffat
RAYC

Please let me know if there is further interest to come along to our christmas tasting. I remember Cookie had also interest to invite a friend of his.

regards

WS1

[jdaw1]

I have drawn this to the attention of a witty friend. Don’t hold a space for him first come first served but maybe he will play.

[Deleted_User_1]

As there is now space for 14 attendees could I have a place for a friend?

[KillerB]

Sorry guys but I'm going to have to pull out of this. I've been trying to get the logistics right but it's getting too much. I am extremely busy at the moment including all of next week. I also have a host of other things going on including oraganising a party for the following Saturday (which you're all invited to btw).

Very sad to drop out as I've been to them all so far and feel an obligation to it but I am running myself ragged. Enjoy yourselves without me and let me know if there is any expense for which I'm liable,

Alex

[DRT]

Sorry about this chaps but I also have to pull out of this event. I now have to be at the other end of the country on Thursday and Friday on business so it will not be possible for me to make it to The Bell.

I hope you all have a great time and look forward to seeing you all in 2011

Derek

[g-man]

anybody going to put this on video conf?

[DRT]

anybody going to put this on video conf?

You have clearly never visited The Bell. It exists in a different dimension in a land without internet or mobile phones. Beer is served in wooden jugs and witches burned at the stake at midnight. Anyone who turned up with video conference equipment would be immediately condemned as a witch!

[g-man]

anybody going to put this on video conf?

You have clearly never visited The Bell. It exists in a different dimension in a land without internet or mobile phones. Beer is served in wooden jugs and witches burned at the stake at midnight. Anyone who turned up with video conference equipment would be immediately condemned as a witch!

BURN THEM@!!

[Deleted_User_1]

Sorry to hear Derek and Alex K are unable to attend...there is always the second bite of the cherry on 29th December ...and for information we do not burn our witches any more....we extradite them to Scotland

[jdaw1]

You have clearly never visited The Bell. It exists in a different dimension in a land without internet or mobile phones. Beer is served in wooden jugs and witches burned at the stake at midnight.

Manifest nonsense. Utter rubbish. These Scots know nothing of English customs. Witches pah! In England they have always been burnt during daylight hours.

[jdaw1]

I guess I’m on placemat duty. People are buying new smaller water-soluble labels. Such people need to send measurements soon. Please cope.

[DRT]

You have clearly never visited The Bell. It exists in a different dimension in a land without internet or mobile phones. Beer is served in wooden jugs and witches burned at the stake at midnight.

Manifest nonsense. Utter rubbish. These Scots know nothing of English customs. Witches pah! In England they have always been burnt during daylight hours.

Apologies. I must have been there at the last noon eclipse witch-burning. It's a miracle I survived.

[WS1]

Julian,

can you please help us with the placemats? With regards to the labels I will send you a separate e-mail tomorrow. Hope there is enough time left. With regards to your coments about witches and the Scottish please bear in mind that the Scottish are essentially Germans/Schwaben like me that were thrown out because they were wasting money. You should be a little more tolerant

Derek, Alex K,

I am very sorry to hear that you cannot make it. In case there is a short notice glitch that could bring you to the tasting, please let us know. It looks now that we may have not a full attended tasting.

Hi Cookie,

please advise the name of your friend, I will add him to the attendee list.

regards

WS1

[jdaw1]

With regards to your coments about witches and the Scottish please bear in mind that the Scottish are essentially Germans/Schwaben like me that were thrown out because they were wasting money.

Surely, Wolfgang, it’s Germans/Schwaben like you who are essentially Scottish?

Placemats: please post more detail. Who is coming? Wines numbered? How many? Sizes of the small-labels pages please.

[DRT]

With regards to your coments about witches and the Scottish please bear in mind that the Scottish are essentially Germans/Schwaben like me that were thrown out because they were wasting money.

Surely, Wolfgang, it’s Germans/Schwaben like you who are essentially Scottish?

I must have been off school on the day of this particular history lesson. I can understand a claim for lots of English people to be German (the present Royal family being a good example) but I wasn't aware of a migration one way or the other between Scotland and Germany. I would be happy to be enlightened.

[jdaw1]

Wolfgang’s words suggest that the Scottish are like the Germans/Schwaben who are like Wolfgang. That might or might not be many.

[WS1]

Derek,

I am afraid to disappoint you here, there is no direct connection. It is more like a running joke that is widely distributed from that stretch in Germany I come from. The people believe there that they are very productive and mean. And to put in perspective they came up with this idea that they are even worse than the Scottish who are for whatever reason considered to be extremely efficient and not wasteful. You see since you are not mean and i am not either we could not make in this area.
I do not think this is a bad thing and does not touch that your are being Scottish and me being Schwaebish by origin. To use in part this story/joke was to get the thread away from these dark ideas like burning people etc.
And believe it or not it worked

regards

Wolfgang

[WS1]

Julian,

as far as I can see as attendees we have so far

uncle Tom
WS1
Axel P
Chris Doty
AHB
1 special guests, please use initials D.N.
Cookie
JacobH
Alex Moffat
RAYC
friend of Cookie

Hopefully Cookie comes back with the name of his friend quickly and our special guest arrives safely on Thursday afternoon in London where I pick him up. With the Labels I have a simple idea just using the Initials e.g. W.S. and the the number of the Dekanter underneath. So whenever we have a new Port also a set of labels are stuck on the glasses the port is poured into. Since we will probably open not more than 15 different ports and have 18 decanters I think if we have 18 lables for each participant we are on the safe side. As long there is port in the glass there is no problem and as soon as it is empty the glass can be reused with the appropiate label stuck on. Please let me know what you think; also wanted to talk to Alex B about it but was sidetracked with a 1955 vintage Port tasting in Germany . The tasting was great with all ports showing brilliantly!

regards

WS1

[jdaw1]

First draft of placemats.

The pages are as follows.

• Tasting-note pages;
• 2 × Vote-recorder pages;
• 3 × decanter-label pages. In advance these should be: printed; glued to the back of a business card; punched; strung with string.
• 3 × bottle-label pages, to be printed onto Ryman product 0220013460;
• 4 × glass-label pages, using mis-estimated sizing. Awaiting accurate values of, with page held portrait:
  • The paper size, presumably A4;
  • The number of rows;
  • The number of columns;
  • The gap between the rows of labels;
  • The gap between the columns of labels;
  • The non-label margin on the left of the page, that is, the gap between the left edge of the page and the left edge of the leftmost column of labels;
  • Mutatis mutandis, margins on the right, bottom, top;
  • The label size quoted on the packet;
  • Link to the product.

There are no pages on which to put glasses.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I do not think this is a bad thing and does not touch that your are being Scottish and me being Schwaebish by origin.

I did notice that there are a lot of letter in common in the words "Scottish" and "Schwaebish". It would also explain why DRT is so good at sniffing out those supermarket bargains - there is some sort of inherited memory within him that forces him to ensure that he is not wasteful in the hope that he is one day permitted to returned to his true home in SW Germany.

On a serious note, there are a couple of people I would like to ask along to offlines over the next year. Since we are only 11, might I be allowed to ask one along to the Xmas offline if they are free at such short notice?

[Deleted_User_1]

[quote="WS1"]Julian,

Hi Cookie,

please advise the name of your friend, I will add him to the attendee list.

Friend in Barbados so will not attend...most likely to be at the 'Cold Turkey' offline.