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On 11th October 2011, timed to coincide with the end of Roy Hersh's harvest tour the previous weekend to allow anyone on the tour to return via London and stop off for this tasting, we will be holding a matrix tasting of the wines from 1963, 1966, 1970 and 1977 from Dow, Fonseca, Graham and Taylor. This is (almost) a repeat of the first offline that we organised in London in October 2005 when we tasted the Fonseca, Graham, Taylor and Sandeman from 1963, 1966 and 1970.

The venue is to be the Milennium Room in the RAF Club; cost will be approximately £220 per person less a discount for any port supplied for the event. Note that this is only a rough estimate of the cost of the event and will very much depend on the cost of the bottles we acquire.

The table is now full. Any late additions to the attendee list will need to be waitlisted.

Attendees
1 Cynthia Jensen
2 Giles Wigoder
3 Alex Bridgeman
4 Rob Coombes
5 Guest of Rob Coombes
6 Axel Probst
7 CMA Gee
8 Guest of CMA Gee
9 Derek Turnbull
10 Julian Wiseman
11 Andy Velebil
12 Tom Archer
13 Phil W
14 Killer B

Alex

Draft of placemats.

• People as in first post at 12:00 Thu 13 Jan 2011, so
  • ”“NN,
  • ”“RAH,
  • +SRG,
  • +HEG;
• Subsequent people changes:
  • ”“RLC (on 9th May),
  • ”“CSD (on 9th May).
• α63 β63 γ63 δ63, ε66 ζ66 η66 θ66, ι70 κ70 λ70 μ70, ν77 ξ77 ο77 Ï€77.
• The observant will note use of the new feature, BackgroundTextsGlasses, coded for this purpose. (See Tall sans-serif font with good digits for discussion about typefaces.)
• Sixty-four pre-pour sheets: T77 G77 F77 D77, T70 G70 F70 D70, T66 G66 F66 D66, T63 G63 F63 D63; Ï€77 ο77 ξ77 ν77, μ70 λ70 κ70 ι70, θ66 η66 ζ66 ε66, δ63 γ63 β63 α63; T77 G77 F77 D77, T70 G70 F70 D70, T66 G66 F66 D66, T63 G63 F63 D63; Ï€77 ο77 ξ77 ν77, μ70 λ70 κ70 ι70, θ66 η66 ζ66 ε66, δ63 γ63 β63 α63. What is needed rather depends on how the shuffling will be done see next bullet.
• ∃ Decanter labels, of all thirty-two obvious types. What might happen is that four decanters are labelled D77 F77 G77 T77, and filled. One person, with others not watching, then staples over the decanter labels four business cards not marked with a wine, and shuffles the decanters. A different person then staples over those the business cards ν77 ξ77 ο77 Ï€77. These are then pre-poured, and the triple-thick decanter labels put aside. The process is repeated with the other vintages. At the end, the stapled cards can be pulled apart to reveal what is hidden behind ‟Ï€77”, etc.

In other threads I have tended to post on every change to the draft placemats, to alert to that change those who might care. With 295 days until this tasting, that intensity of new posts might be premature. Instead this post will be edited. New-post notifications of changes will start not later than the first of the month of the tasting.

Hello Alex,
This sounds right up my street, and no mistake. As you observe, I may even be able to supply a bottle, which would be an exciting new step for me, rather than having to rely on others' generosity. Please could I reserve a place in the 2nd XIV?
Ghandih

...and, having made Mrs G aware of the tasting, she has expressed keenness and excitement - could we reserve her a slot, too? I believe she has her own log in, but has forgotten her login and password. If any admin folk could help us get over that particular snag, we would be very grateful.

Ghandhih

Start at Helen Gandy SCP-DFO.

I would definitely have a +1 if it were starting to look like there were sufficient demand for a larger tasting.

Cheers

Rob

Please note I have updated the first post with a list of attendees.

Alex

Roy has just advised me that he will not be able to visit the UK on his way back from the Harvest Tour this year. The attendee list has been updated to reflect this and to add Simon and Helen and confirmed attendees.

Flights booked, nothing to come in between me and this fabulous lineup.

Axel

If a waitlist develops, please feel free to keep my "guest" below others from the forum.

I do have someone who would certainly be interested if the tasting were expanded to 28 (or if one of the 14 dropped out and no one else stepped up), but should be offered to others on the forum first.

No worries...

marc j. wrote:Sign me up!

Marc

Does this mean that you are on the Harvest Trip and planning to travel back to the US via London?

Alex

Alex,

Actually my wife and I were think of visiting the U.K. in the fall and this tasting falls pretty close to the dates that we were considering. At this point we can still adjust our vacation dates to coincide with the tasting. She's not as avid a Port fan as myself so she wouldn't be participating in the tasting (hence no +1.)

Marc

In order to give plenty of notice I must withdraw from this event now.

I'm afraid I must also withdraw from this event, as I imagine I'll be unable to get out of NYC this week.

Shame -- seems like it'll be a grand time!

If you do expand this to 28, or a place becomes available, I'd love to join you for this event.

Phil.

Count me in as first reserve. I have a Graham's 1977.

a moment of panic as a "save the date" for an event i must attend popped up for 13th October. phew...

In the [url=http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=39458#p39458]second post of this thread[/url], about the [url=http://www.jdawiseman.com/port/20111011.pdf]draft of the placemats[/url], jdaw1 wrote:∃ Decanter labels, of all thirty-two obvious types. What might happen is that four decanters are labelled D77 F77 G77 T77, and filled. One person, with others not watching, then staples over the decanter labels four business cards not marked with a wine, and shuffles the decanters. A different person then staples over those the business cards ν77 ξ77 ο77 Ï€77. These are then pre-poured, and the triple-thick decanter labels put aside. The process is repeated with the other vintages. At the end, the stapled cards can be pulled apart to reveal what is hidden behind ‟Ï€77”, etc.

Comment on this proposed protocol would be welcomed.

It looks good to me. But making this work effectively will severely restrict the number of people who can be present during decanting. I would suggest a maximum and a minimum of two.

Not at all. Decant bottles in groups of four, by vintage, into matching decanters. The Third Man to do stapling and shuffling, and then, one-in-one-out, The Fourth Man to do same again.

Indeed, in case the decanting people noticed some slight variation in the decanters or the labels, it would then be better if a different team, at the other end of the room, did the pre-pouring.

That could be as many as six people, properly Brigadier General’d.

DRT wrote:But making this work effectively will severely restrict the number of people who can be present during decanting.

I said nothing of pre-pouring or distribution.

The people in the room during decanting will know what the wines are when they enter the decanters. So, DecantingPerson1 will decant 4 bottles of 1977 and see that one is significantly lighter than the others, and one is almost black. He will know which is which, even when they have been blinded.

The fewer people who have that inside knowledge the better.

Fine, agreed.

Though that problem is difficult to avoid without non-drinking staff, whatever the protocol. (Indeed, I recall a similar advantage, many moons ago, enabling me to identify a 1980 Hutcheson.)

[url=http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=15019p#p15019]Here[/url] jdaw1 wrote:Far worse than my previous bottle of H80, though sufficiently similar to be identifiable.

You could perhaps sufficiently reduce the 'insider knowledge' of the people performing the initial decant, while also increasing the number of people who could be involved without compromising port identities with minor modification to your steps:

1. Source sufficient dark glass bottles (there might be a few suitable old port bottles around somewhere...?), labelled 1,2,3...
2. Label your decanters A,B,C...
3. As pre previous description, create tags with house/year for each port, and equivalent tags labelled 1,2,3... and A,B,C...
4. Group1 decant from original bottles to dark glass bottles (selecting a random numbered bottle and its tag), in each case taking original tag and over-attaching the numeric tag on the name tag
5. Group2 decant from dark glass bottles to decanters (or other bottles), selecting random letter bottle and decanter with appropriate tags, and attach the alphabetic tag over the top of the numeric one.

- Additional notes:
(i) Group1 and Group2 during preparation can be any size, provided no-one is a member of both groups. In fact, the more people in each group, the less chance for any colour comparison by each person decanting multiple bottles.
(ii) Optionally, make the people doing the decanting wear dark sunglasses, to further reduce the colour perception of the port in the funnel during decanting (this would assume you are double-decanting through muslin/whatever, and relying on experience and the cloth rather than visual back-lit sign of first sediment)
(iii) Instead of tags, use envelopes, one inside the other, so any tells on card edges etc are hidden within each step

PhilW wrote:Optionally, make the people doing the decanting wear dark sunglasses

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full Pipe of port, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.