ThePortForum.com

Posted: **22:12 Sun 12 Oct 2014**

I think JDAW wants more info on the Terrier Racing event.

Posted: **22:18 Sun 12 Oct 2014**

DRT wrote:I think JDAW wants more info on the Terrier Racing event.

It's a scorcher. Get a few hundred locals, a cider tent, a betting shed and plenty of assorted dogs. If it rains you have the added spectacle of cars slithering down the field to form little schools, shunting helplessly at each other. I used to go religiously every year but I am more frugal of my pleasures these days.

Posted: **23:00 Sun 12 Oct 2014**

I have witnessed such events at various Scottish Border town agricultural shows in a former life. Very entertaining, but rarely scorching.

Posted: **23:02 Sun 12 Oct 2014**

But I think JDAW might be looking for historical context to accompany quotes about the listed Ports in "the book".

Posted: **07:34 Mon 13 Oct 2014**

LGTrotter wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Please post more about the secondary source.
My information is limited to the book itself. Already ably reviewed on 'Books about Port' site, it is written by the great grandson of the original Dickens. It is slimmish and from a cursory read it has thrown up a number of nuggets. One being the précis of the Gads Hill auction catalogue sold after the death of Dickens which I have posted. There are the usual series of still blindingly marvellous quotes, alongside rather more modern observations by a rather less talented Dickens. He does however have his merits, a solid recipe for negus and smoking bishop are always welcome. He also has some interesting connections and stories, but I doubt they would scintillate most readers. Published in 1980 it has the feel of something from the fifties, or even the thirties. And there is a chapter entitled "The great port controversy"; is that not enough?

I note there was a review of the slim volume by the New York Times in 1981; the brief additional information being that the primary sources used by Cedric Dickens (the author) were "the notebook of recipes, dated 1859, recorded by Georgina Hogarth" and "the catalogue of Dickens's wine cellar at Gads Hill, drawn up for the sale of the house in 1870 after his death" (no date/author provided). The article also makes reference to Cedric sharing "a steaming bowl of bishop, a drink made with Port" with a professor being how the idea for the book came about. Given that this was published 33 years ago and the author was 65 at the time, Cedric Dickens may no longer be in a position to offer access to the sources, but perhaps his progeny might, if wanted?

Posted: **10:31 Mon 13 Oct 2014**

The book says the list of wines is taken from the auction catalogue. The only catalogue I can see is for the property rather than the contents. I also note that the catalogue now costs more than Dickens paid for the house.

And 'The great port controversy' needs access to the Sunday Times correspondence pages for 1961; any suggestions gratefully received.

Posted: **10:36 Mon 13 Oct 2014**

There is this which seems to be a sort of cellar book of Gads Hill; http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/book ... tails.aspx

Posted: **10:28 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

I have online access to the Sunday Times from 1961 but I don't know what you're looking for therein.

Posted: **13:31 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

In Roald Dahl's "My Uncle Oswald" (in the 2011 Peguin edition on pages 42-43) you can find the following lines:
" ... 'Have a glass of Port, young man', Sir Charles Makepiece said to me, 'and pass it round.' Ipoured myself some port and carefully passed the decanter to my left. 'This is a good bottle. Fonseca '87.' "
As the book was first published in 1979 and the episode where the port was drunk is said to take place in 1912, the '87 is a 1887. But I guess that the vintage was just invented by Dahl, as 1887 is pretty close to the "phylloxera plague" (But Julian might know if there ever was a 1887 Fonseca).

Posted: **14:25 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

AW77 wrote:In Roald Dahl's "My Uncle Oswald" (in the 2011 Peguin edition on pages 42-43) you can find the following lines:
" ... 'Have a glass of Port, young man', Sir Charles Makepiece said to me, 'and pass it round.' Ipoured myself some port and carefully passed the decanter to my left. 'This is a good bottle. Fonseca '87.' "
As the book was first published in 1979 and the episode where the port was drunk is said to take place in 1912, the '87 is a 1887. But I guess that the vintage was just invented by Dahl, as 1887 is pretty close to the "phylloxera plague" (But Julian might know if there ever was a 1887 Fonseca).

Well, there were ports made in 1887...

Posted: **16:03 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

djewesbury wrote:I have online access to the Sunday Times from 1961 but I don't know what you're looking for therein.

'The great port controversy' concerns the following quote from 'Pickwick Papers':

'I'm very sorry he has failed,' said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. 'Capital dinners he gave.'

'Fine port he had too,' remarked Mr. Simmery. 'We are going to send our butler to the sale to-morrow, to pick up some of that sixty-four.'

The controversy being that port was not being made in 1764. In 'Drinking with Dickens' it is said that this point was argued out through the correspondence page of the 'Sunday Times' in 1961. Alistair Lucas claimed this was another inaccuracy in Pickwick Papers. Warner Allen (he of 'A contemplation of wine' etc) then agreed that port was not produced until 1770. I am not sure who supported Dickens in this but apparently in 1980 eleven men came together in 'Mother Bunches' London to thrash out the truth of the matter.

I think it seems quite possible that port was being made and shipped in 1764.

Posted: **17:03 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

LGTrotter wrote:
djewesbury wrote:I have online access to the Sunday Times from 1961 but I don't know what you're looking for therein.
'The great port controversy' concerns the following quote from 'Pickwick Papers':

'I'm very sorry he has failed,' said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. 'Capital dinners he gave.'

'Fine port he had too,' remarked Mr. Simmery. 'We are going to send our butler to the sale to-morrow, to pick up some of that sixty-four.'

The controversy being that port was not being made in 1764. In 'Drinking with Dickens' it is said that this point was argued out through the correspondence page of the 'Sunday Times' in 1961. Alistair Lucas claimed this was another inaccuracy in Pickwick Papers. Warner Allen (he of 'A contemplation of wine' etc) then agreed that port was not produced until 1770. I am not sure who supported Dickens in this but apparently in 1980 eleven men came together in 'Mother Bunches' London to thrash out the truth of the matter.

I think it seems quite possible that port was being made and shipped in 1764.

EDIT: I have now appended the image that was contained in this post to a post at the (current) end of this thread, so that all the letters are in chronological order.

Posted: **17:32 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

The opening of the correspondence, 7th April 1961:

Posted: **17:33 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

The correspondence hots up, 16th April 1961:

Posted: **17:38 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

Lucas's contribution, 14th May 1961:

Posted: **17:40 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

Warner Allen's reply, 21st May 1961; this seems to be the last word on this particular matter in the correspondence pages of the Sunday Times.

Posted: **19:29 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

Bless you Daniel, you deserve to find every ullaged bottle of Croft 1970 perfect. I was keen to see this correspondence and you have slaked my thirst.

But I hardly feel I can leave the last word to Mr Allen, wine sage he may have been but the oldest port has been discussed elsewhere and I am sure I have seen a facsimile of a label from a 1750ish port. Compania Real or something.

Posted: **20:33 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

Thank you. I find it amusing that a James Forrester manages to creep into the correspondence.

Posted: **22:48 Sat 18 Oct 2014**

LGTrotter wrote: 'The great port controversy'

Isn't "The great port controversy" the leitmotif on The Port Forum?

Posted: **19:44 Tue 21 Oct 2014**

djewesbury wrote:Thank you. I find it amusing that a James Forrester manages to creep into the correspondence.

Yes, curse him, we'd all be drinking ghastly unfortified muck if he'd had his way.

AW77 wrote:
LGTrotter wrote: 'The great port controversy'
Isn't "The great port controversy" the leitmotif on The Port Forum?

indeed, but difficult to keep coming up with new ones. How about; 'is there any point in drinking port and not getting drunk? Would you buy a de-alcoholised port?'

Posted: **19:13 Fri 31 Oct 2014**

I found some more references to port in Roald Dahl's "My Uncle Oswald":

"After supper, A.R. Woresley and I retired to his study to drink a good bottle of port that I had brought him as a present. It was a Croft 1890, if I remember rightly." (p. 75)

" 'I thought I'd leave that until the port is on the table. No good plans are ever made without a bottle of port.' " (p.98) [I think this is a very sensible attitude.]

"I ordered the best bottle of port in the house and some Stilton cheese. There was absolute silence between us as we waited for the port to be decanted. It was a Cockburn and a good one, though I've forgotten the year." (p. 99-100)

"The port was very good. The Stilton was good, too, but I only nibbled it to clear my palate. I called for an apple. A hard apple, thinly sliced, is the best partner for port." (p. 102) [I guess Owen will agree with this statement.]

"He put a lump of Stilton in his mouth and swilled it round with with port. Thus he ruined both the cheese and the wine." (p.106)

(All page numbers refer to the 2011 Peguin edition.)

It seems that Roald Dahl knew something about port.

Posted: **20:18 Fri 31 Oct 2014**

The previous post reminded me of "Taste" a rather ghastly story by Dahl about a wine connoisseur who cheats. The story has more of the revolting aspects of his writing than most.

Posted: **15:30 Sun 28 Dec 2014**

Not a port reference, but a healthy rejoinder to all that healthiness nonetheless: and posted here rather than in 'Alcohol and Health'. Charles Baudelaire, in the poem 'Enivrez-vous', in Paris Spleen, inveighs as follows:

You must always be intoxicated. It is the key to all: the one question. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time breaking your back and bending you to the earth, you must become drunk, without truce.

But on what? On wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But you must get drunk.

And if at times, on the steps of a palace, or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you awaken, and your intoxication is already diminished or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that flees, everything that groans, everything that rolls, that sings, that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! In order not to be the slaves martyred by time, always become intoxicated! On wine, on poetry or on virtue, as you will."

Posted: **00:06 Sun 25 Jan 2015**

With regard to Dickens cellar I understand (from "Convivial Dickens" by somebody or other) that his cellar of about 185 dozen bottles made £521 17/6 in August 1870. The 1834 port going for between six and seven pounds a dozen. An annotated copy of the catalogue is in the British Library.

This may seem to belong in the auction thread but as it relates to an earlier mention of Dickens I thought I would put it here.

Posted: **08:23 Tue 21 Apr 2015**

In [i]The Hobbit[/i], John Ronald Reuel Tolkien wrote:When he heard this Bilbo was all in a flutter, for he saw that luck was with him and he had a chance at once to try his desperate plan. He followed the two elves, until they entered a small cellar and sat down at a table on which two large flagons were set. Soon they began to drink and laugh merrily. Luck of an unusual kind was with Bilbo then. It must be potent wine to make a wood-elf drowsy; but this wine, it would seem, was the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion, not meant for his soldiers or his servants, but for the king's feasts only, and for smaller bowls, not for the butler's great flagons.

Very soon the chief guard nodded his head, then he laid it on the table and fell fast asleep. The butler went on talking and laughing to himself for a while without seeming to notice, but soon his head too nodded to the table, and he fell asleep and snored beside his friend. Then in crept the hobbit. Very soon the chief guard had no keys, but Bilbo was trotting as fast as he could along the passage towards the cells. The great bunch seemed very heavy to his arms, and his heart was often in his mouth, in spite of his ring, for he could not prevent the keys from making every now and then a loud clink and clank, which put him all in a tremble.

Delivered in cask — IVDP, pay heed! — from the Long Lake.

Posted: **23:43 Sun 03 Jan 2016**

Would anyone like to know more?

This is the Dorothy L. Sayers story I promised; and I post this page tonight to whet your appetites. As you can see, Lord Peter Wimsey is not here for this one.

Owen do you know this?

I propose to post a page a day. It's not a long story and it can be your bedtime read for the next two weeks. But this is just a trailer.

Posted: **00:05 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

Yes please.

Posted: **00:05 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

I am delighted to say I have never heard of it. Now all I need is a bottle of Dow 08 to drink while I read it. Daniel you really are the shiny silver sixpence in my pudding. Can't wait, I bet the mousey niece did it.

Posted: **00:09 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

You two make it all worthwhile.

Posted: **00:12 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

LGTrotter wrote:I bet the mousey niece did it.

Nonsense. It must have been the house-guest, whose mother had a grievance against our hero’s father (probably a dispute in India about a cask of Malmsey).

Posted: **00:14 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

LGTrotter wrote:Daniel you really are the shiny silver sixpence in my pudding.

djewesbury wrote:You two make it all worthwhile.

Are you sure you two are on the correct social media site?

Posted: **00:15 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

It was the corkscrew that obscured the evidence....Ah-so!

Posted: **01:43 Mon 04 Jan 2016**

DRT wrote:
LGTrotter wrote:Daniel you really are the shiny silver sixpence in my pudding.
djewesbury wrote:You two make it all worthwhile.
Are you sure you two are on the correct social media site?

It is indeed a pleasure to have the old lags back, and of course the newer ones.

Posted: **01:35 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

Whoops! Left you hanging there. Here are two pages to make up for it.

Posted: **16:12 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

Delightful! I eagerly await the next installment!

Posted: **17:06 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

Glenn E. wrote:Delightful! I eagerly await the next installment!

My thoughts exactly. I read it late last night and think I might enjoy being drip fed it. I had heard of the Montague Egg stories before but didn't realise he was a salesman for a wine merchant. I think I might have to invest in the two collections he appears in.

I may have made this point before but I always wonder about the kind of people who work in wine merchants. You rarely get public school educated, double-barrellers working in other areas of grocery but it is common when it comes to selling wine. I wonder why?

Posted: **19:29 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

Excellent!

LGTrotter wrote:You rarely get public school educated, double-barrellers working in other areas of grocery but it is common when it comes to selling wine. I wonder why?

Perhaps a convenient trade for the sons of the well-heeled gentlemen who could not quite manage to be lawyers, doctors or commissioned officers to ensure they didn't have to mingle with the great unwashed?

Posted: **19:44 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

DRT wrote:Excellent!

LGTrotter wrote:You rarely get public school educated, double-barrellers working in other areas of grocery but it is common when it comes to selling wine. I wonder why?
Perhaps a convenient trade for the sons of the well-heeled gentlemen who could not quite manage to be lawyers, doctors or commissioned officers to ensure they didn't have to mingle with the great unwashed?

Yes, what Derek is trying to say it's a convenient dumping ground for the younger sons and their ilk.
"Oh, darling, I meant to say, Godolphin has secured a position with Messrs. Stanley and Freienm."
"Something of a relief, dear; but he'll still have to learn to tie his shoelaces."

Posted: **19:52 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

Is everyone sitting comfortably?

Apologies for breaking off halfway through a sentence. That's what you call a cliffha

Posted: **19:53 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

LGTrotter wrote:I may have made this point before but I always wonder about the kind of people who work in wine merchants. You rarely get public school educated, double-barrellers working in other areas of grocery but it is common when it comes to selling wine. I wonder why?

Perhaps those with well-off parents are both more likely to attend a public school, and to have had more experience of fine wine and hence cultivated an interest while young?

Posted: **19:53 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

Glenn E. wrote:Delightful! I eagerly await the next installment!

+1 (thank you, Daniel)

Posted: **20:09 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

I am enjoying this, but it is difficult trying to not hear the "Dum, dum, da-da-dum..." from Eastenders at the end of each installment

Posted: **22:22 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

DRT wrote:I am enjoying this, but it is difficult trying to not hear the "Dum, dum, da-da-dum..." from Eastenders at the end of each installment

It is exciting isn't it! And I know how it ends!!

Posted: **22:23 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

There should really be a TPF scheduling app that would automate the posting of the remaining pages for me.

NB. That is not a serious suggestion.

Posted: **23:48 Wed 06 Jan 2016**

: image.jpeg (20.89 KiB) Viewed 12580 times

Posted: **00:52 Thu 07 Jan 2016**

LGTrotter wrote:

image.jpeg (20.89 KiB) Viewed 12574 times

{like}

Posted: **01:10 Thu 07 Jan 2016**

This is working so well!!

Posted: **16:40 Thu 07 Jan 2016**

DRT wrote:
LGTrotter wrote:
image.jpeg
{like}

+1

Posted: **18:24 Thu 07 Jan 2016**

djewesbury wrote:This is working so well!!

It is, except for the lack of new page for me to read this morning; I want my fix!

Posted: **18:28 Thu 07 Jan 2016**

djewesbury wrote:There should really be a TPF scheduling app that would automate the posting of the remaining pages for me.

Perhaps JDAW could add this functionality to the tasting mat software.

I too am thoroughly enjoying the series.

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