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Continuing the theme from 2009 (Vargellathon) and 2010 (Grahams vs Malvedos) I have taken it upon myself, in consultation with those also blessed to be an Aries, to start the planning for 2011. With so many vested interests, there is already strong demand, before we even have a firm date!

Proposed theme: Fonseca vs. Fonseca Guimaraens (DRT has a FG 1965!)
Date: tbc, but likely to be very early April (edit: 4th April)
Venue: tbc until date is resolved, but hopefully the RAF Club on Picadilly (edit: confirmed RAF Club)

Attendees:
1. Me
2. DRT
3. DRT's +1 (industry guest)
4. RAYC
5. Axel
6. JDAW1
7. UncleTom
8. AHB
9. Ghandih
10. Cookie
11. JacobH
12. Chris Doty
13. WS1
14. AndyVelebil

Waiting list:
1. Marc J

No longer attending:
1. Christopher G
2. JacobH +1
3. Mrs Ghandih

Vintage availability:
Costs of attending will need to be balanced based on what can physically be contributed, along with the cost of dinner, corkage etc. No idea how this will all work out yet and I will certainly engage the support of others to help work it all out. (DRT please!) To help me work out what line up we could organise, could people PM me what they are willing to contribute or put up for adoption, along with any cost estimates. I will start a post of available vintages to tease DRT and JDAW1 into making this the most complete vertical ever achieved!

Updated 17th January 2011:
We have now confirmed the date (4th April ) and venue (RAF Club, courtesy of Axel again.). Please can you all confirm your attendance (or otherwise) and update me if you have any undeclared bottles of Fonseca / Guimaraens you are willing to make available.

Updated 27th January:
Attendance and wait list updated.

Updated 22nd March:
Attendance list updated.

A place holder for offered vintages...

Edit 18th January:

We have offered so far:

Fonseca: 1960,1963,1966,1970,1977,1980,1985,1992,1997,2000
Fonseca Guimaraens: 1942 (poss),1962 (poss),1965,1968,1972,1976,1978,1984,1986,1988,1991,1996

A vague plan is emerging to focus on the FG and intersperse them with occasional Fonseca, as we did with the Grahams / Malvedos tasting in 2010.

I have Fonseca 66, 85, 97 and 2000 and FG65.

I thought I had 3 or 4 other FGs, but I must had done a KillerB-V94 on them

If, in your search for FG, you happen upon a stash of FG64 beyond that needed for this tasting, please advise.

1964 is my birth year and very few '64s exist. FG is one, and I would love to aquire more once this tasting has its allotment in place.

Glenn,

It did not escape my notice that a bottle of FG64 passed through my hands on its way to Seattle not so long ago. We will, of course, keep watch for more

Derek

I have had good luck with reserve lists so far so would certainly be interested in putting my name forward - thanks, Rob

I note that since Fonseca Guimaraens is not quite a SQVP (the question over Graham's Malvedos notwithstanding), this does not exempt from organising a proper SQVP tasting in 2011

Ben,

I have quite some Fonsecas, Guimaraens and Panascals after 1970, which I am happy to contribute. Let me know and I would like to fill the gaps.

Axel

Would love to attend!

That's two on the reserve list. How many do we need before we do this with Magnums?

JacobH wrote:That's two on the reserve list. How many do we need before we do this with Magnums?

I don't think I have ever seen a magnum of Fonseca Guimaraens!

But if we can get 7 people on the reserve list then maybe it would be worth 2 bottles of each wine...

AHB wrote:

JacobH wrote:That's two on the reserve list. How many do we need before we do this with Magnums?

I don't think I have ever seen a magnum of Fonseca Guimaraens!

Pff...details

Details updated. See first post.

I'm still available!

First draft of placemats.

• benread wrote:to tease DRT and JDAW1 into making this the most complete vertical ever achieved!

  So far, we are rubbish and will be going thirsty.

Still planning on attending, baring any major work issues. Looking into flights soon.

jdaw1 wrote:First draft of placemats.

• benread wrote:to tease DRT and JDAW1 into making this the most complete vertical ever achieved!

  So far, we are rubbish and will be going thirsty.

I laughed out loud when I saw the draft placemat for the Fonseca Guimaraens vertical - with 1 bottle of Guimaraens and 4 bottles of Fonseca on it!

Ben - stop teasing us with your second post (the placeholder for the offered vintages) and start to tantalise...we are only 2 months and 13 days away from the tasting.

AHB wrote:I laughed out loud when I saw the draft placemat for the Fonseca Guimaraens vertical - with 1 bottle of Guimaraens and 4 bottles of Fonseca on it!

Between fourteen people not enough. Maybe Axel can save us:

Axel P wrote:I have quite some Fonsecas, Guimaraens and Panascals after 1970, which I am happy to contribute. Let me know and I would like to fill the gaps.

AHB wrote:

jdaw1 wrote:First draft of placemats.

• benread wrote:to tease DRT and JDAW1 into making this the most complete vertical ever achieved!

  So far, we are rubbish and will be going thirsty.

I laughed out loud when I saw the draft placemat for the Fonseca Guimaraens vertical - with 1 bottle of Guimaraens and 4 bottles of Fonseca on it!

Ben - stop teasing us with your second post (the placeholder for the offered vintages) and start to tantalise...we are only 2 months and 13 days away from the tasting.

Rest assured we will not be thirsty. At last count, we have 20+ offered vintages! Will try and update tonight.

List of possible ports now updated. Costs will need to be confirmed.

Updated draft of placemats.

• +Lots of bottles. Hurray!
• Most bottles missing the name of the contributor.
• Nothing in the pedants’ third millennium.

benread wrote:Fonseca: 1960,1963,1966,1970,1977,1980,1985,1992,1997,2000
Fonseca Guimaraens: 1942 (poss),1962 (poss),1965,1968,1972,1976,1978,1984,1986,1988,1991,1996

A vague plan is emerging to focus on the FG and intersperse them with occasional Fonseca, as we did with the Grahams / Malvedos tasting in 2010.

Link to that Malvedos tasting.

For starters I’d be happy to lose the F60 and F80.

jdaw1 wrote:

benread wrote:Fonseca: 1960,1963,1966,1970,1977,1980,1985,1992,1997,2000
Fonseca Guimaraens: 1942 (poss),1962 (poss),1965,1968,1972,1976,1978,1984,1986,1988,1991,1996

A vague plan is emerging to focus on the FG and intersperse them with occasional Fonseca, as we did with the Grahams / Malvedos tasting in 2010.

Link to that Malvedos tasting.

For starters I’d be happy to lose the F60 and F80.

I agree. I also think that 1985, 1992, 1997 and 2000 represent too many extremely immature Fonseca vintages.

DRT wrote:I also think that 1985, 1992, 1997 and 2000 represent too many extremely immature Fonseca vintages.

Surely F85 would be interesting against FG84 and FG86.

On the other hand, it isn’t as if we don’t know what F85 is like. We know it well.

jdaw1 wrote:

DRT wrote:I also think that 1985, 1992, 1997 and 2000 represent too many extremely immature Fonseca vintages.

Surely F85 would be interesting against FG84 and FG86.

Yes, it would be. My point was that 4 bottles of immature port spanning only 15 years is too many. One from four might not be too many.

benread wrote:A place holder for offered vintages...

Edit 18th January:

We have offered so far:

Fonseca: 1960,1963,1966,1970,1977,1980,1985,1992,1997,2000
Fonseca Guimaraens: 1942 (poss),1962 (poss),1965,1968,1972,1976,1978,1984,1986,1988,1991,1996

A vague plan is emerging to focus on the FG and intersperse them with occasional Fonseca, as we did with the Grahams / Malvedos tasting in 2010.

A line-up of 1942, 1962, 1963, 1965, 9168, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1988 would give us a good range of mature vintages with each vintage of Fonseca separated by at least 2 vintages of Guimaraens. If it was felt that 12 bottles was insufficient refreshment for 14 grown men and women then we could have an after dinner flight of "bring a bottle to share" as we did at the '66 vs '67 tasting.

Could we include all the FGs, including ’78, ’91 and ’96?

And are we really refusing F66?

AHB wrote:

benread wrote:Fonseca: 1960,1963,1966,1970,1977,1980,1985,1992,1997,2000
Fonseca Guimaraens: 1942 (poss),1962 (poss),1965,1968,1972,1976,1978,1984,1986,1988,1991,1996

The following FG vintages are now also available: 1933, 1957, 1961, 1967, 1982 & 1987.

I think the focus of this tasting is Fonseca Guimaraens rather than the full-blown Fonseca declared vintages so, like jdaw1, would suggest that we include all of the FG vintages we have available. At this point we have 18 FGs and 10 Fs. Cost is also a consideration here so I think the appropriate way forward is for some sums to be done behind the scenes and then a proposed line-up and cost circulated to the participants by email/PM to agree on a final line-up.

Derek

Updated draft of placemats.

• +Lots of bottles, and ”“None. Hence this is looking a lot less thirsty than the first draft.

This will need splitting into two sessions, entailing the usual argument about order.

• Oldest first, as they are more delicate and easily overwhelmed by the youngsters.
• Youngest in first session so they can be spat, this wastage not happening to the older and rarer bottles in the second session.

I wouldn't mind jettisoning the post 1990 Guimaraens, on the basis that we are not trying to make this complete tasting, up to 2008, and those are likely just to be very dark and immature. Ditto for the 1985 Fonseca. I'd also note that one of the reasons we started including Graham's VP in the Malvedos blend was to flesh out a tasting that looked slightly thing until the Symington's very generously intervened. It may be that we don't really need to flesh out this tasting that much.

The largest tasting yet was the 1970 Horizontal in January 2009, weighing in at 35 bottles. The updated draft of placemats has 32 bottles: four more and we can set a new record. Surely we can’t refuse an opportunity like that. We need:

• Fonseca 2007, 2003, 1994, 1983, 1975 (yes, I know), 1955, 1948, 1945, !
• Fonseca Guimaraens 1998, 1974, 1964, 1958, !

jdaw1 wrote:The largest tasting yet was the 1970 Horizontal in January 2009, weighing in at 35 bottles. The updated draft of placemats has 32 bottles: four more and we can set a new record. Surely we can’t refuse an opportunity like that. We need:

• Fonseca 2007, 2003, 1994, 1983, 1975 (yes, I know), 1955, 1948, 1945, !
• Fonseca Guimaraens 1998, 1974, 1964, 1958, !

But when we have a massive tasting, I find that after the first dozen or so, I stop enjoying the ports and simply become very analytical. I can cope with around 2 dozen in two flights - but 35 ports I find exceedingly hard work and not wholly pleasurable. My vote would be to have this as a tasting which focused on mature (21+ years of age) vintages and of Fonseca Guimaraens if we have enough different vintages not to need to pad the line-up out with extra bottles of Fonseca.

AHB wrote:I can cope with around 2 dozen in two flights

Three dozen in three? Morning, afternoon, evening?

For that 1970 Horizontal I arrived on the red-eye, so the start time of 13:30 was 08:30 for me. Let’s be a little slower, starting at 10:30.

My preference would be to keep this at a level weher we can start after work as it will cause some people difficulty in attending if we start in the afternoon. I can cope with quite a lot on an evening though.

Hi,

I am also against such an increased lineup and also propose to limit ourselfs to 24 or so bts. I am sure we will eventually break the previous record of 35 ports ( Axel and I did not intend to set any record when thinking about a 1970 horicontal tasting; when I had ~ 20 different ones at home and we started putting the tasting together it eventually lead to this mammoth tasting; I admit I was also keen to get it to this number since J. Suckling claims to have tasted over his lifetime 35 different vintage ports from 1970; I liked the idea we can do this in an evening )
The main reason for me against it is the amount of work it involves; when ever we do a mamoth tasting it cost essentially 2-3 people a whole day to get everything organised. I had a lot of sympathy with Derek last time for the Malvedos tasting. On top I think it did not help the effort got bigger during the set up of the tasting; in short he should have not got carried away by the completeness idea
Furthermore this will be a tasting during/beginning of the week; we all have to do work the next day.

regards

WS1

benread wrote:My preference would be to keep this at a level weher we can start after work as it will cause some people difficulty in attending if we start in the afternoon. I can cope with quite a lot on an evening though.

The Birthday Boy’s Word is Law! (Alas.)

After works means people arrive by 7ish? That imposes an upper limit of two sessions of about ≈10 each. Perhaps FG ’33 ’42 ’57 ’61 ’62 ’65 ’67 ’68 ’72 ’76 ’78 ’82 ’84 ’86 ’87 ’88 ’91, that being seventeen, and three Fonsecas?

As one of the birthday boys I am especially sad to announce that I shall not be able to attend on 4th April.

Could I please be added to the waiting list for this tasting? Thanks!


Marc

Attendance list updated.

Gentlemen, start your engines...

Where is the smiley for "licking my lips"?!

The labels look new. Are they?

jdaw1 wrote:The labels look new. Are they?

Yes.

benread wrote:Where is the smiley for "licking my lips"?!

+1

sniff, this makes me sad that I don't live in the uk =(

Ben,

could you please post the final lineup?

Thanks

Axel

The line-up currently looks like this:

1933
1942
1957
1961
1965
1967
1968
1972
1976
1978
1982
1984
1986
1987
1988
1991
1995
1996
1998
2001
2004
2005

Derek

Thanks, Derek, no classic vintages?

Dont get me wrong. This is a fabulous lineup, much harder to organise than one with the classic Fonsecas, but I do believe it would be nice to have at least like two or three classic in between for reference reasons.

Axel

Axel P wrote:Thanks, Derek, no classic vintages?

Dont get me wrong. This is a fabulous lineup, much harder to organise than one with the classic Fonsecas, but I do believe it would be nice to have at least like two or three classic in between for reference reasons.

Axel

Behind the scenes negotiation ongoing

Axel P wrote:for reference reasons.

A fantastic excuse for drinking more port.