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It's been a while since we opened a bottle of port but the weather has finally turned decisively - flooding on the high ground as torrential rain pours off the mountains, and dark by not long after 6. As Beckett writes, "… the apples falling and the children walking in the dead leaves and the larch turning brown a week before the others and the chestnuts falling and the howling winds and the sea breaking over the pier and the first fires and the hooves on the road and the consumptive postman whistling The Roses Are Blooming in Picardy …"

Well we lit the first fire this evening using one of the backless Graham's Crusted boxes as kindling, and then proceeded to pop a Quevedo Finest Unfiltered Reserve to ease ourselves in to what promises to be an eventful season.

Tally ho!

Splendid! Enjoy.

Scramble scramble scramble!

jdaw1 wrote:Scramble scramble scramble!

Roger Control. Target sighted.

I'm still waiting for my start of the port season as the autumn in the Rhineland has been the warmest in living memory. Today we have brilliant sunshine and a temperature of 26° C (or 78.8°F for our American members). I just came in from a walk wearing only a T-shirt. When the temperature drops I will pop my first bottle of the season.
PS: this warm autumn will produce some fine Spätlese Rieslings. So this consoles for the delay of the port season.

AW77 wrote:I'm still waiting for my start of the port season as the autumn in the Rhineland has been the warmest in living memory. Today we have brilliant sunshine and a temperature of 26° C (or 78.8°F for our American members). I just came in from a walk wearing only a T-shirt. When the temperature drops I will pop my first bottle of the season.
PS: this warm autumn will produce some fine Spätlese Rieslings. So this consoles for the delay of the port season.

I look forward to those Spätleses! I didn't know it was so warm there, but it's been warm here until this week (not quite as warm as 26º though!), and today again the sun is out and it's a lovely day. But the Autumn is definitely here. I'm not making a TN of the FUR (sometimes one just wants to enjoy a drink), but there's still some in the decanter on day 3 so I will see how it's evolving later today.

Last night, T85 and TV01, blind to the guests. Simon Gandy nailed the T85. Doff hat.

A SW80 decanted at Saturday lunch and tasting rather lost on Saturday pm but with the benefit of a further 24hrs now quite enjoyable partaken with some old Amsterdam cheese.

jdaw1 wrote:Last night, T85 and TV01, blind to the guests. Simon Gandy nailed the T85. Doff hat.

How was the TV01?

Andy Velebil wrote:How was the TV01?

On the first night at D+6hr, good, even though rougher and thinner than the T85. On the second night, without a comparison, it had thickened and was substantially improved.

The weather is not a variable of interest at the moment. Mother in law is visiting so a W80 will be cracked open, with my teeth if need be.

PopulusTremula wrote:The weather is not a variable of interest at the moment. Mother in law is visiting so a W80 will be cracked open, with my teeth if need be.

Yes, port is a very good painkiller. We are having a very slowly cooked lamb tagine tonight and have no in-laws, outlaws or on-the-runs visiting, so I think a W85 will be adequate for our needs tonight.

I just had a severe Pavlovian response (or HomerSimpsonian if you will - same thing really) to your mention of tagine. Let us know how the Warre shows, i need more of this.

PopulusTremula wrote:I just had a severe Pavlovian response (or HomerSimpsonian if you will - same thing really) to your mention of tagine. Let us know how the Warre shows, i need more of this.

A shame I can't attach the smell coming from the kitchen. Goodness, is that the time? Time to stand the bottle I think!

We opened a warre 1980 for Canadian thanksgiving a couple weeks ago. Most of my family drinks port regularly (lbvs mostly) and they were blown away. I had heard how dark this port is but I still was surprised at just how inky purple it was. Is this the norm for 34 year old ports? Should its siblings lay dormant for another decade?

gardenhose wrote:We opened a warre 1980 for Canadian thanksgiving a couple weeks ago. Most of my family drinks port regularly (lbvs mostly) and they were blown away. I had heard how dark this port is but I still was surprised at just how inky purple it was. Is this the norm for 34 year old ports? Should its siblings lay dormant for another decade?

The Warre 1980 is a bit of a hobby horse for me. It is an astonishingly big and dark wine, all the more so given the reputation of the vintage. As you say it shows very little sign of age and will keep going for not just one but several decades. But it is rather good now.

Warre seems to be something of an unstated theme for October. A few days ago - before catching up with this thread - I opened a bottle of Warre 1983. Warre 1983 is my comfort port. I find it reliably delicious.

I blame Andre Simon for hooking me on W83 since it was one of his shops that suddenly produced a big bin full of half bottles of W83 priced at £2 per half. Mind you, that was in the late '80s when this port was barely out of nappies. The story was that one of the names at Lloyds who was a member of a syndicate that was being liquidated had had to sell his wine collection. The port ended up at Andre Simon in Belgravia (just off Buckingham Palace Road). I bought so many of those half bottles. I used to walk over there at lunch time and buy a couple pretty much every day. They went home with me in my briefcase and got opened with reasonable regularity. I changed jobs and moved offices in 1992 and gradually drank my way through my stock never realising how lucky I had been to be in the right place at the right time. Now, several decades later, I wish I'd bought the entire binfull. There must have been a dozen cases of 24 halves sold through this shop. The last one I owned was opened in 2007 and shared with Sean and Moses in Boston.

Happy days.

Excellent story. To continue the W theme we're drinking a W86 LBV and enjoying it.

W86 LBV is very more-ish.

To give a bigger, brawnier buffer to the damp and cold coastal influence, the wife and I pulled out an '07 Porto Rocha. Delivering everything you'd want from a young port to keep you warm and happy.


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I thought you meant a 1907 for one moment. That would be more like a very thin silk scarf.

CaliforniaBrad wrote:an '07 Porto Rocha

A superb VP - one of my favorites from that vintage.

djewesbury wrote:I thought you meant a 1907 for one moment. That would be more like a very thin silk scarf.

Very fashionable, though probably lacking some function.


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Ahhhh.

That satisfied sigh you all heard a moment ago was the sound of someone who has had a tough week in the office and has just opened a bottle of Warre 1970. Ummmmm.

AHB wrote:That satisfied sigh you all heard a moment ago was the sound of someone who has had a tough week in the office and has just opened a bottle of Warre 1970. Ummmmm.

A child said, about then, “Daddy: what was that satisfied sigh? Was it outside or in the house?” I admitted not knowing.