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Having tough acts to follow we finally arrived at Quinta do Noval to be greeted by Christian Seely, the man from Axa in charge of the wines and Managing Director of Noval. A real gentleman, Christian had offered us the hospitality of Quinta do Noval and, in turn, we provided a selection of toppermost Port from individual supplies and combined purchases.

I cannot thank Christian and the staff of Noval enough for the hospitality and generosity. This has been a theme of this trip and it has staggered me. A big thank you also to Rute who provided a walk around the Quinta in the morning and was delightful and knowledgeable company.

The Wines then:

1945 Croft
1945 Taylor
1948 Fonseca
1927 Taylor
1955 Graham
1931 Quinta do Noval
1963 Quinta do Noval Nacional
1896 Dow

Of all the Quinta's I have visited in the Douro Noval is my favourite place to be. The atmosphere is relaxed and welcoming and the views are spectacular. It is difficult to imaging that there is a better place to be on a warm summer evening than sitting on a bench on the Noval terrace looking at the lights of Pinhao and the Quintas that surround it whilst sipping fabulous port in great company and putting the world to rights.

It was a genuine honour to be allowed to hold this tasting at Noval and my sincere thanks go to Rute and Christian for their hospitality and participation in a great evening of port drinking splendor.

Thanks also to AHB for a stellar job in organising and executing the logistics to make this event the success that it was.

Derek

An evening that will go down in the annuls of Port history. A remarkable time and I can't thank our hosts enough for all they did for us. To Alex and Derek for organizing this, and for all the others who dug deep in their cellars to make this happen. Many thanks to all.

As for the only not mother tongue english guys thanks a lot for taking me along on this. I do believe that this tasting set once more standards for a decent Port trip and on the next time we all will be to the Douro, we will say "Nice, but I remember..."

Thanks to the perfect hosts Christian and Rute and to the perfect organisators Alex and Derek.

Axel