London Quinta De Vargellas tasting - 24th March

Post by **DRT** » 11:23 Sun 15 Feb 2009

Wolfgang,

We have a number of Vargellas vintages that may be available for people to buy for this tasting. We would like to stick with mature vintages if possible. One major gap in our line-up at the moment is the Vargellas 1991. If you can find a bottle of that to bring along that would be great. If not, please confirm which vintages we have and we can work out who needs to bring what.

Thanks
Derek

benread · Post by **benread** » 12:07 Sun 15 Feb 2009

I have updated the original post in this thread to reflect the current state of play. I am looking forward to this evening!

If anyone else wants to join us, please let me know.

Axel P · Post by **Axel P** » 17:05 Sun 15 Feb 2009

Guys,

I will meet Wolfgang before the tasting and I do have some 91 Vargellas, though half bottles only. As well as 96. If interested, let me know.

Axel

benread · Post by **benread** » 05:57 Mon 16 Feb 2009

Axel P wrote:Guys,

I will meet Wolfgang before the tasting and I do have some 91 Vargellas, though half bottles only. As well as 96. If interested, let me know.

Axel

Axel,

There has been talk of the 1991 featuring and earlier posts suggest Wolfgang has no other bottles of Vargellas that are considered mature. Thank you for the offer and I am happy to leave you and Wolfgang to decide if he will bring that bottle.

Enjoy your Croft tasting on 6th March!

benread · Post by **benread** » 10:03 Mon 16 Feb 2009

The table at TCP is now booked for 6.30pm onwards. If anyone else wants to join us let me know so I can ensure we have enough seats at the table.

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 11:27 Mon 16 Feb 2009

Assuming that Ben's friends will not be joining us (based on them not being on the revised list) a 1978 from either Ben or myself would also be a possibility for adoption...

Axel P · Post by **Axel P** » 20:33 Mon 16 Feb 2009

Since the 24th is my birthday I will give Wolfgang a half bottle of Vargellas 91 for you guys to drink a toast to me and he will most probably bring a full bottle of Vargellas, which I will provide him with.

Axel

Post by **DRT** » 23:32 Mon 16 Feb 2009

Thank you, Axel. That is very kind and we will be sure to toast you onyour birthday.

Derek

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 10:07 Tue 17 Feb 2009

Axel P wrote:Since the 24th is my birthday I will give Wolfgang a half bottle of Vargellas 91 for you guys to drink a toast to me and he will most probably bring a full bottle of Vargellas, which I will provide him with.

That's very kind of you! We certainly will!

WS1 · Post by **WS1** » 21:59 Tue 17 Feb 2009

Lads,

with a little bit of luck I will turn up with a standard bt of Quinta de Vargallas 1991 on the 24th of March in TCP. If the worst case scenario happens I will bring Axels half bt of 1991.

Hope this is OK.

All the best

Wolfgang

benread · Post by **benread** » 22:21 Tue 17 Feb 2009

WS1 wrote:Lads,

with a little bit of luck I will turn up with a standard bt of Quinta de Vargallas 1991 on the 24th of March in TCP. If the worst case scenario happens I will bring Axels half bt of 1991.

Hope this is OK.

All the best

Wolfgang

Noted and original post updated to reflect this. Thank you.

Ghandih · Post by **Ghandih** » 10:16 Wed 25 Feb 2009

All,

In a parallel thread on another possible tasting event (to which I'd add a slightly smug link if only I knew how), I indicated an urge to drink some very nice port soon, and was directed to this event. Would I be able to register my interest (but not, yet, commit, as I have yet to broach the subject with The Management), and seek possible bottles that I might adopt for the evening, on the sad knowledge that I have none of my own?

Many thanks,

Ganhdhi

benread · Post by **benread** » 20:04 Wed 25 Feb 2009

Ghandih wrote:All,

In a parallel thread on another possible tasting event (to which I'd add a slightly smug link if only I knew how), I indicated an urge to drink some very nice port soon, and was directed to this event. Would I be able to register my interest (but not, yet, commit, as I have yet to broach the subject with The Management), and seek possible bottles that I might adopt for the evening, on the sad knowledge that I have none of my own?

Many thanks,

Ganhdhi

Gandih,

Your interest is noted. Let me know what reaction you get from "The Management" and I will amend the table booking if necessary.

Post by **DRT** » 20:48 Wed 25 Feb 2009

Ghandih wrote:Would I be able to register my interest (but not, yet, commit, as I have yet to broach the subject with The Management), and seek possible bottles that I might adopt for the evening, on the sad knowledge that I have none of my own?

Bottles are available for adoption already, but I can' remember what and from whom. But they are, so you will find one

Axel P · Post by **Axel P** » 07:25 Fri 27 Feb 2009

Since Wolfgang managed to get full bottles of Vargellas 91 which he intents to bring, my "present" just changed from a half bottle of Vargellas 91 to a full bottle of Vargellas 96, if this is convenient. Please Derek tell me, if this is still missing in your collection.

Axel

Post by **DRT** » 22:22 Fri 27 Feb 2009

Axel P wrote:Since Wolfgang managed to get full bottles of Vargellas 91 which he intents to bring, my "present" just changed from a half bottle of Vargellas 91 to a full bottle of Vargellas 96, if this is convenient. Please Derek tell me, if this is still missing in your collection.

Axel

Axel,

That is very kind. Thank you.

As Ben is the organiser of this event I will defer to him to confirm whether or not we already have one of those, but I don't think we do.

Derek

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 23:04 Fri 27 Feb 2009

Courtesy of Glenn, I will be bringing Vargellas 1982 with me on the 24th.

benread · Post by **benread** » 06:22 Sat 28 Feb 2009

Axel P wrote:Since Wolfgang managed to get full bottles of Vargellas 91 which he intents to bring, my "present" just changed from a half bottle of Vargellas 91 to a full bottle of Vargellas 96, if this is convenient. Please Derek tell me, if this is still missing in your collection.

Axel

Axel,

That is a very kind offer. Thank you. We do not have a 1996 so far. I have formally noted this in the introductory post setting out details of the event.

Regards,

Post by **DRT** » 08:35 Sat 28 Feb 2009

Ben,

If I am reading the updated list correctly the only people requiring adopted bottles are Christopher and Ghandii. I believe Tom has 72 and 78 available for adoption, neither of which appear on the current list.

Derek

PS: Tom need to get home from his jollies in the far east before this can be confirmed

benread · Post by **benread** » 08:38 Sat 28 Feb 2009

DRT wrote:Ben,

If I am reading the updated list correctly the only people requiring adopted bottles are Christopher and Ghandii. I believe Tom has 72 and 78 available for adoption, neither of which appear on the current list.

Derek

PS: Tom need to get home from his jollies in the far east before this can be confirmed

You are correct. Everyone else has declared although Tom is still to confirm his contribution when he gets home.

I was wondering about Christopher! Jacob and I also have the 1978 available for adoption. I am just waiting to hear back from Ghandhi as to his availability following discussions with SWMBO. Do you have an update on that?

Glenn E. · Post by **Glenn E.** » 04:04 Sun 01 Mar 2009

AHB wrote:Courtesy of Glenn, I will be bringing Vargellas 1982 with me on the 24th.

You are too kind - the only courtesy involved was your offer to let me source bottles to trade you for one that I coveted. That then gave me another excuse to go Port shopping!

I will be at the tasting in spirit, pun intended.

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 19:56 Sun 01 Mar 2009

It’s probably a bit early to be worried about this, but what do people think about decanting times? My experience of the younger Vargellas has always been that they need quite a lot of time but I’m less sure about the older ones. I presume that it would be good if Ben and I are aim for about the same amount of time (to improve the comparison), unless we would like to have another variable and have the two ’67s decanted a long way apart?

benread · Post by **benread** » 21:18 Sun 01 Mar 2009

JacobH wrote:It’s probably a bit early to be worried about this, but what do people think about decanting times? My experience of the younger Vargellas has always been that they need quite a lot of time but I’m less sure about the older ones. I presume that it would be good if Ben and I are aim for about the same amount of time (to improve the comparison), unless we would like to have another variable and have the two ’67s decanted a long way apart?

I seem to recall you decanted the last 1967 about mid-night and my experience Friday / Saturday this weekend suggested similar times for the 1978. I am open to suggestions from others though.

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 21:22 Sun 01 Mar 2009

benread wrote:I seem to recall you decanted the last 1967 about mid-night and my experience Friday / Saturday this weekend suggested similar times for the 1978. I am open to suggestions from others though.

That was principally due to necessity and I did wonder whether (as it ended up being quite light) a decant-on-arrival might have been better!

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 22:44 Sun 01 Mar 2009

My experience with Vargellas is limited, but my experiments over 2-3 days with the occasional bottle would indicate that they can take a hefty decant time. Midnight before the tasting would be fine for me!

Post by **DRT** » 22:49 Sun 01 Mar 2009

AHB wrote:My experience with Vargellas is limited, but my experiments over 2-3 days with the occasional bottle would indicate that they can take a hefty decant time. Midnight before the tasting would be fine for me!

Having re-read my one and only TN for the Vargellas 1965 I think I will open that bottle 24 hours before the tasting.

WS1 · Post by **WS1** » 23:16 Mon 02 Mar 2009

Hi, Ho

hope the 91 Vargallas will be shipped in time. Looks all good at the moment. With regards to decanting times of Vargallas I think we should open the bts at least 1 day in advance. Decanting is another thing but at least the bt should be opened before hand.
With regards to decanting time I would like to recomend decanting them about 2h before we drink/try them after they have been open at least for a day. My experience with Vargallas is limited, know only the 1995, which is a port I like very much. Usually I find them better a day after haveing opened the bt. My usual strategy is to open them, try a glass, rekork the bt or leave it open and continue the next day. That works best. Decanting it for 24h has also its merits but destroys the "punch/attack" a bit in my eyes. Despite you get more complexity with very long decanting but the "brut force" appearance, which is also appealing, at least for me, is lost/reduced.

regards

Wolfgang

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 10:06 Wed 04 Mar 2009

How about an agreement that you decant when you think appropriate / possible for the bottle you are bringing, but make a note of how and when the bottle was opened and decanted?

Alex

WS1 · Post by **WS1** » 21:50 Wed 04 Mar 2009

Will do, it is highly likely that I will open the bt 24h in advance if the 91 Vargallas is shipped in time if not told otherwise. Can we do the Decanting at the Crusting pipe? I will ask Axel what he recomend with regards to his 1996. Have you got any experience with the 1991/1996?

regards

Wolfgang

Post by **jdaw1** » 21:54 Wed 04 Mar 2009

Please could the placemat-maker (hereby assumed to be me) have a simple noddy guide as to what is being drunk by whom?

benread · Post by **benread** » 21:55 Wed 04 Mar 2009

Wolfgang,

Decanting at TCP is no problem. Alex always has his portable kit to hand and TCP always have suitable jugs or simply old port bottles suitable for decanting into.

Regards,

benread · Post by **benread** » 21:56 Wed 04 Mar 2009

jdaw1 wrote:Please could the placemat-maker (hereby assumed to be me) have a simple noddy guide as to what is being drunk by whom?

Julian,

I think Jacob may take on this task for this tasting. Either way, the original post has been updated to reflect the current state of play. I am still waiting for confirmation of 2 attendees although I am fairly certain one or the other will be bringing the 1978!

Post by **jdaw1** » 22:03 Wed 04 Mar 2009

benread wrote:I think Jacob may take on this task for this tasting.

Works for me. Jacob: please confirm that it works for you.

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 10:05 Thu 05 Mar 2009

jdaw1 wrote:
benread wrote:I think Jacob may take on this task for this tasting.
Works for me. Jacob: please confirm that it works for you.

I will do my best

WS1 wrote:Will do, it is highly likely that I will open the bt 24h in advance if the 91 Vargallas is shipped in time if not told otherwise. Can we do the Decanting at the Crusting pipe? I will ask Axel what he recomend with regards to his 1996. Have you got any experience with the 1991/1996?

The last time I opened a '96 I wrote that I thought it would reach perfection at 12 hours. But that was from a half-bottle so it might have been a bit more mature, and it was certainly a very enjoyable experience on opening and at 24 hours.

Axel P · Post by **Axel P** » 12:12 Thu 05 Mar 2009

I would go for 12 hrs on the 96 and for 24 hrs on the 91.

I will open my half 91 in Germany as my birthday Port and sing me a little birthday song with it.

Axel

benread · Post by **benread** » 20:13 Thu 05 Mar 2009

Original post updated with latest attendees and confirmed bottles.

Only Ghandhi remains unaccounted for - both in terms of attendance and (if so) bottle!

Ghandih · Post by **Ghandih** » 12:29 Fri 06 Mar 2009

Hi Ben,

I will broach the subject this weekend with Mrs G, and let you know on Monday, if not before. Sorry for the delay...

Ghandih

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 21:44 Sat 07 Mar 2009

Some early thoughts about placemats.

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 21:45 Sat 07 Mar 2009

JacobH wrote:Some early thoughts about placemats.

(Which may not be available between 1500 and 1800 GMT tomorrow due to my webhost doing some work).

Post by **jdaw1** » 22:04 Sat 07 Mar 2009

JacobH wrote:Some early thoughts about placemats.

GuildfordDemo-Normal appears to be a sans-serif typeface, in which the digit 1 is an unadorned vertical line. That means spacing between a 1 and any digit looks much wider than the spacing between any non-1 pair of digits. Me no likey.

Also, the Circlearrays don’t match the Titles (look at the ’87 and ’91).

Not quite full marks for your spelling of Niepoort.

Bottom left, most printers will fail to print the tail of the Q as it is too close to the edge of the paper.

Post by **jdaw1** » 22:07 Sat 07 Mar 2009

And which method did you choose for the Vargellas logo?

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 22:21 Sat 07 Mar 2009

jdaw1 wrote:
JacobH wrote:Some early thoughts about placemats.
GuildfordDemo-Normal appears to be a sans-serif typeface, in which the digit 1 is an unadorned vertical line. That means spacing between a 1 and any digit looks much wider than the spacing between any non-1 pair of digits. Me no likey.

True; I might redo their kerning pairs (I presume that Postscript respects the kerning in the font?). The reason it’s a bit off is that the font is the closest I could find to a free version of Gill Sans, the typeface used for a while on Vargellas logos.

jdaw1 wrote:Also, the Circlearrays don’t match the Titles (look at the ’87 and ’91).

Not quite full marks for your spelling of Niepoort.

Bottom left, most printers will fail to print the tail of the Q as it is too close to the edge of the paper.

i) Typo; will fix.
ii) Ditto.
iii) Should work on the printer I intend to use but, in any case, most people use Adobe Reader to print which results in the page being shrunk in any case, irrespective of whether the author intended it.

jdaw1 wrote:And which method did you choose for the Vargellas logo?

The method was quite simple: I produced the logo I wanted, traced it in Inkscape to turn it into an SVG and replaced a glyph within the font (I went for the Ã€) with the SVG in FontForge. A (bit of a) hack, and only effective with smallish monochrome logos, but it seemed to work in this case!

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 22:24 Sat 07 Mar 2009

Also, amusingly, the ‟Demo” nature of the GuildfordDemo was demonstrated by them swapping the A and Ã… glyphs!A cunning, if slightly odd plan!

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 22:31 Sat 07 Mar 2009

Would it be possible to include the name of the person bringing the bottle in the circle marking the space for the relevant glass as well as the name of the port?

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 22:38 Sat 07 Mar 2009

AHB wrote:Would it be possible to include the name of the person bringing the bottle in the circle marking the space for the relevant glass as well as the name of the port?

Yes; I’m currently correcting the mistakes spotted by jdaw1 (including faking the kerning of the 1s in the main date) so I’ll add that, too.

JacobH · Post by **JacobH** » 22:45 Sat 07 Mar 2009

JacobH wrote:
AHB wrote:Would it be possible to include the name of the person bringing the bottle in the circle marking the space for the relevant glass as well as the name of the port?
Yes; I’m currently correcting the mistakes spotted by jdaw1 (including faking the kerning of the 1s in the main date) so I’ll add that, too.

Now updated, hopefully with all corrections/emendations thus far.

Notes:
i) The kerning of the dates in the circle array cannot easily be fixed without modifying the font!a possibility put perhaps more trouble than it’s worth.
ii) The names are fairly small because the two ’67; the ’96 and Niepoort require more text. This doesn’t particularly bother me but can be changed if desired.

Post by **jdaw1** » 23:04 Sat 07 Mar 2009

JacobH wrote:True; I might redo their kerning pairs (I presume that Postscript respects the kerning in the font?).

Errr, looks at feet. Suddenly notices that everybody’s glass is empty: my round same again?

(I call plain show. Advice on kerning and kshow or better would be welcomed.)

But you can kern manually: [(W) {CurrentFontSize -0.07 mul 0 rmoveto} (arre)] works in straight lines and in circles.

Post by **jdaw1** » 23:15 Sat 07 Mar 2009

JacobH wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:Bottom left, most printers will fail to print the tail of the Q as it is too close to the edge of the paper.
!
iii) Should work on the printer I intend to use but, in any case, most people use Adobe Reader to print which results in the page being shrunk in any case, irrespective of whether the author intended it.

Allowing Acrobat to scale the print post-production always looks terrible.

JacobH wrote:
jdaw1 wrote:And which method did you choose for the Vargellas logo?
The method was quite simple: I produced the logo I wanted, traced it in Inkscape to turn it into an SVG and replaced a glyph within the font (I went for the Ã€) with the SVG in FontForge. A (bit of a) hack, and only effective with smallish monochrome logos, but it seemed to work in this case!

You narg! Please email the PS, and any other useful pieces.

Post by **Alex Bridgeman** » 23:18 Sat 07 Mar 2009

I will happily leave you two kerning away. My only comments would be that I can live with the font of the numeral 1 as it is, but would also observe that it is rather harsh looking against the other numerals, with 1991 looking particularly dominated by the numeral 1 - the 1 almost looks to be taller and bolder than the 9s.

But, my main objective is to know which port I am drinking and the current draft of the placemats will most certainly assist me in that.

Alex

Post by **jdaw1** » 23:20 Sat 07 Mar 2009

And the texture of the circle text would look more even without the ‟+” separators.