The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

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jdaw1
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by jdaw1 »

By email edited to add links and an accent AHB wrote:PW brought Niepoort 87
JGH brought Cálem 85
AHB brought Dow 85
RAYC brought D80, G85, G85 and Ch85

All were splendid, some more splendid than others.
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jdaw1
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by jdaw1 »

By email edited to add links and an accent AHB wrote:And wine of the night was:
Ch85 with 27/28 points
Cá85 with 19
D85 with 18
Ni87 with 16
G85 (bottle 5) with 15
D80 with 10
G85 (bottle 6) with 7
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DRT
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by DRT »

jdaw1 wrote:
By email edited to add links and an accent AHB wrote:PW brought Niepoort 87
JGH brought Cálem 85
AHB brought Dow 85
RAYC brought D80, G85, G85 and Ch85

All were splendid, some more splendid than others.
A small observation, which is in no way intended as a criticism: RAYC doesn't seem to have grasped the fundamental basis of the ‟bring a bottle of vintage port to the tasting” :roll:
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
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jdaw1
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by jdaw1 »

RAYC was bringing not only for himself.

Nonetheless, he is to be thoroughly commended for his selfless pursuit of knowledge. Truly a gentleman scientist.
PhilW
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by PhilW »

[/quote]A small observation, which is in no way intended as a criticism: RAYC doesn't seem to have grasped the fundamental basis of the ‟bring a bottle of vintage port to the tasting” :roll:[/quote]

Indeed, and he generously brought some spare tasting bottles and gave me a few to share the leftovers (fairly small considering we had 7 bottles of port between 4!). I very much enjoyed the evening, meeting everyone and drinking a nice variety of ports and some good food from TCP.

Phil.
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JacobH
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by JacobH »

I really enjoyed this tasting which provided a really good overview of the ’80s. We were extremely fortunate to have 7 bottles in good condition (although there was some discussion as to whether some were flawed in one way or another, none were undrinkable). It was also excellent to meet PhilW; I hope we didn’t put him off and he will be willing to come again!

The Churchill ’85 was extremely good; I am coming round to the view that Churchill is a much underrated house. From the start they have made some excellent wines.

One thing that did stick out in this tasting was how wines with different levels of maturity compare when tasted blind. The Dow 80 was, I think, just too youthful to do well. Equally, although it was obviously stored in a worse way, I preferred the ‟flawed” Graham’s 85 to the ‟proper” one since it had a touch more maturity to it which made it more elegant for drinking now. We also had a bit of a ‟Parker” moment with the Niepoort ’87. On first tasting, I wasn’t terribly impressed with it due to the sourness. However, on revisiting it, having drunk another 6 Ports, it really stuck out because of the sourness and that characterfulness impressed me.

Rob remains the perfect gentlemen for his extreme unbounded generosity.
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jdaw1
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by jdaw1 »

PhilW (and all others): please do post your tasting notes in the threads linked in the first post. They don’t need to be long or full of obscure smells just post what you sensed and what you concluded.

These notes do help us with our own purchasing decisions please do post yours.
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by PhilW »

In addition to the reviews posted in the tasting thread, I thought it might be worth commenting here on my following night follow-up additional tasting I was lucky enough to be able to do with samples of the remains from Thurs excellent night.

To briefly summarise my previous conclusions from Thu: The Calem 85 was my wine of the night, and a suitable replacement for my previous regular Warre77 (if only there were more of it around). I placed the Churchill 85 second (everyone else placed it first), followed by the N87 and D85, both of which were very good although I didn't like the sour (VA?) edge to the N87. Of the two bottles of G85, I felt the first was partly corked - at least, it tasted just like the G83 I reviewed as partly-corked last month; whatever the fault, it was interesting as it was common to be both of these, but then when we opened the second G85 on Thur this one did not have the fault and was very pleasant. The Dow80 was simply too closed, seemed immature, which is remarkable given it's current age...

On repeating the test with samples on Fri, the Churchill now stood out as the best - it was still superb, while the Calem has waned slightly with more acidity, as had the G85 and the Niepoort still had the same sour edge.

As far as the overall conclusion as to whether we have solved the search for Phil W's new house port.... The Calem85 would be a worthy successor with a similar, huge flavour to the W77; However there is not much around, and on the second night the Ch85 was still superb. I will probably buy some of both, tbh :D, the Ch85 could easily become the new staple, but I might just keep on trying other things too ;)

Thanks again to all who attended for the good company and experience, and for jdaw assisting with the organisation.

PhilW.
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jdaw1
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Re: The Quest for Phil W’s new house port

Post by jdaw1 »

Phil: here you have received the increasingly-traditional baptism of pedantry. :-)
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