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When: TBA - perhaps spring '14, maybe on the back of the BFT

Where: TBA - but our usual haunt seems favourite

But on both counts make every effort to fit the diary of EDN

Attending:

EDN
THRA
DFM
RAYC
RAYC + 1
Dr Wolfgang (I think) aka AP +1
Flash UK?
CPR
Sushinorth
AP (non - dining)


Possible format:

- Blind pairs of the ten principal houses - Cockburn, Croft, Dow, Fonseca, Graham, Niepoort, Noval, Sandeman, Taylor & Warre.

- Back up bottles to be on hand to replace any that are obviously faulty - only Ni63 would give me a problem on that front.

- Each participant knows only that each pair is the same shipper.

- Each participant has to award a total of six points to each pair, and guess the shipper. If the guess is correct, their points are doubled.


Current draft of the placemats.

(Placemats added to this post by jdaw1, with the permission of the original poster.)

Yes please.

Note thread entitled 1960 versus 1963: which should be drunk first? which has triggered this scientific test.

Placemats will appear here.

Yes please.

CMAG also says "yes please".

This looks like a great one.

I am better endowed with 60s (will send you a list) but have nice bottlings of Delaforce and Sandeman 63s if we choose to include those. I have the odd other 63 purchased as singles but they're not necessarily bottles i'd trust for an event like this.

Yes please. Thought you'd never ask.

I have exactly zero bottles for this line-up so will have to adopt, please?

I would suggest this is an event where the fairest thing to do is split the cost evenly amongst attendees. I am happy to act as Treasurer if that would help?

DRT wrote:I have exactly zero bottles for this line-up so will have to adopt, please?

Ditto. What I had I selfishly drank myself.

DRT wrote:I would suggest this is an event where the fairest thing to do is split the cost evenly amongst attendees. I am happy to act as Treasurer if that would help?

Happy with this.

Will the BFT be on St George's again, in likelihood? If so that's a Wednesday. And it's during the University's Easter holidays. Which would be good.

TheBFT wrote:the b.f.t. 2014 on Thursday, 24th April

So Wednesday 23^rd April is a possibility for ’60 versus ’63.

jdaw1 wrote:

TheBFT wrote:the b.f.t. 2014 on Thursday, 24th April

Excellent. Registration completed.

Yes, please.

Axel

Our objective here is a side-by-side comparison of the vintages. If we compare my Taylor 1963, seemingly in good condition, with somebody else’s Taylor 1960, seemingly in good condition, can we be sure that they have identical cellaring histories. Of course not. So we need bottles that have been stored in the same cellar for their whole lives.

That means that we must ask the shippers. In return, we could offer £€$¥元, or alternatively could offer bottles they particularly desire.

jdaw1 wrote:we must ask the shippers. In return, we could offer £€$¥元, or alternatively could offer bottles they particularly desire.

That will not work. When we had the 1960 horizontal Graham were unable to supply us with a bottle as they have either none or library stock only. Other bottles in this line-up will be similarly difficult to liberate and some shippers (you know who I mean) just will not play.

In order to reach a useful conclusion the bottles should come from the best sources we can find where we would normally source our Port. Assessing the quality of what has sat in Oporto for 50-53 years is not useful to us.

That will not work.

Agree - it will raise all sorts of difficulties, not to mention cost. Most of the bottles will have spent much of their life in conditions that are warmer than ideal.

Propose that we seek stock from cases or part cases that are in good order and proven, avoiding odd un-provenanced bottles.

From good or tested provenance I have a decent selection of 1963s and about half the shipper's 1960 so I will let others volunteer their bottles before I volunteer mine.

The only one I don't have is Niepoort.

Please put me in +1

Sorry yes, +1 also for me.

The ultra rapid sign up on this event prompts me to volunteer three likely regular attendees as ? players, to give them time to check their emails..

Yes please, I would like to be in if there is still space.

uncle tom wrote:Blind pairs of the ten principal houses ! Noval !

Can we assume you mean the standard Noval bottlings only? I see no value in collectively spending £5,000 to include the Nacionals for the purposes of this evaluation.

Several of the major-shipper 1963s are possible for me. Taylor I have several, one of which will surely have a good fill. The others need checking. But none of the 1960s.

Hi,

I would be interested; so please put me down. Since I see that quite a few places have been taken please let me know if I can take part or not.

regards

WS1

WS1 wrote:Since I see that quite a few places have been taken please let me know if I can take part or not.

Tom has already saved you a seat

DRT wrote:

WS1 wrote:Since I see that quite a few places have been taken please let me know if I can take part or not.

Tom has already saved you a seat

Thank you and Tom!

Hi,

after having read through the thread I think we should reflect what we can achieve with this tasting and what we cannot. I know uncle Tom see's this as the "crunch match" of his birthday vintage vs the applauded year of the last century by journalists in which clearly after having tasted so many of both vintages he has a point.
But I do not think we can prove 60s are now generally better than 63s by applying some statistics. I also feel that the "English bottled" vs "Oporto bottled" problem adds to it. On top based on our already rich experience I feel that we need to give some ports special treatment in order for them to show best for this tasting; e.g. Sandeman does not need a lot of decanting time and should not be opened well in advance. Though the biggest of all problems is the what I call the so called "bt problem". To describe of what I mean is when you buy a case of old claret, port or anything you usually end up with 3 -4 fantastic bottles, 4-5 very good to excellent bts, 1-2 good to Ok bts and 1-2 not showing so well or duff bts.
Hence whatever we do we cannot necessarily ensure to start with an even playing field of the ports for the tasting. I agree that we should try to pair only similar provenance bts but I cannot see us being able eradicating all the bts/provenance problems for this comparison tasting since we just have not enough proper bts at hand to do so.
One other thing I would like to insist on for this tasting; the bts are brought to the venue not on the day but well in advance and were standing at least up for a week. Also no recently purchased ports which were shipped via courier; only nicely rested bts please!
Furthermore I would like to suggest all bts are opened 3 hours in advance and then decanted shortly before putting them into the glasses. This method brought up by F. Audouze after having gone through palats of trying old wines is also preferred by EDN, RAYC and me and has proven to have a high hit rate for old bts showing well with regards to preparation.
With regards to wines contributing the Calem pair comes to my mind since I believe I am the only one having the pair. Both are of very good provenance.

regards
WS1