A Trio of 1963 - 23 Oct 2012

[DRT]

Organisation thread.

Ben, Alex and I met at The Bung Hole this evening to (belatedly) celebrate Alex's birthday with a mini 1963 horizontal. What a treat!

The Borges was very good Port. Something any of us would be very happy opening on an average night. The Constantino was excellent Port. Youthful, still full of fruit and with many years ahead of it. The Graham was one of the best Ports I have tasted this year. Or last year. Or the year before that. Stunning.

Happy Birthday, Alex.

[RAYC]

Ben, Alex and and I met at The Bung Hole this evening to (belatedly) celebrate Alex's birthday with a mini 1963 horizontal.

This was followed by the RAYC Rescue Offline, held briefly between 23.20 and 23.45 at a location which shall remain undisclosed on public forums, where a supply of 50ml of WOTN that had been generously set aside earlier in the evening by attendees of the main event was gratefully sampled. It was voted comfortably "WOTY so far" by me. Many thanks to AHB, DRT and BMHR for arranging such a nice surprise.

[benread]

Please may I clarify one point relative to the title given this event by JDAW - the 'Trio of 1963' refers to the bottles of VP, not the attendees!

By the fortune of the alphabet, we tasted the wines in ascending order of 'wow'. Each was impressive in its own right, but the known/unknown/Graham's was fabulous. It would easily have passed for VP from the 1980's.

Even better, I made my last train home - thankfully, I remained awake as for the 2nd time in 2 days I was on a train that called at Wokingham - the irony of it!

BTW, the steaks were very good too.

[Alex Bridgeman]

It was a very relaxed night last night. A modest number of bottles, a modest sized meal and I made my train quite comfortably.

And the ports were lovely. We had unanimity over the wine of the night, with a marginal disagreement over the relative difference in quality between the wines. Scores were:
DRT: G63 = 3½, Cn63 = 1½, BI63 = 1
BMHR: G63 = 3, CN63 = 2½, BI63 = ½
AHB: G63 = 3, Cn63 = 2, BI63 = 1

Attendees were also asked to describe each of the wines relative difference in quality. The descriptions were:
G63
AHB: Concorde, mid-Atlantic at 53,000 feet and cruising at Mach 2.2 - smooth, unruffled and a class above everything else
BMHR: Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal to win England the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia
DRT: Halle Berry walking out of the sea in Die Another Day

Cn63
AHB: Business class on an intercontinental 747 - pleasant and enjoyable...but you know things could be better
BMHR: Day 5 of the Ashes Test at the Oval in 2005
DRT: Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking - mature, sophisticated and with a great body

BI63
AHB: Short haul business class - makes life tolerable, but not for very long
BMHR: England beating Scotland at Twickenham when nothing is at stake
DRT: Anne Bancroft in The Graduate - old and a little but tired...but here's to you Mrs Robinson

[jdaw1]

The three attendees chose different categories of things to which to liken the ports. Does the choice of categories speak of the attendees?