Monthly Archives: April 2016

A wonderful day in Porto

Figueira2007After a great day with good spring weather we decided to visit a Port wine lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia. We went in to the Porto Cruz lodge and decided to have a tasting, and as my friends were new to the wide world of port I decided to have a tasting with broad range of port to show that port is a very wide concept. We got seven port, starting with the dry white, continuing with a few tawnies and ending with Cruz Vintage 2011 and Dalva Golden White 1963. We all agreed that we did not prefer the dry white but the decision between the old white and vintage was more difficult. It is astonishing that white port can transform from a quite mediocre wine (new on release) to a very complex and fantastic wine with age. We also learned that La Martiniquaise, the owner of Porto Cruz has bought the stock of Vasconcellos port from Christies. The brand of Vasconcellos remains with Christie’s.
Figueira2011After the touristic Gaia lodges we decided to have a glas of nice vintage port in the fabulous port wine bar Vinologia. I was very disappointed to find that is was closed! On the outside everything looked at usual but looking through the window we say a pile of letters inside and that everything was abandoned. However, we were lucky to get directions to the new location. It is just 30 meters down the street towards the river but there were no signs to the new place. We entered the new location, Portologia, and I wanted to find a vintage port we had never tried before. As I was looking at bottle of Quinta de Lamelas Vintage 2010 I said half aloud to myself “I wounder if we have tried this vintage” and as a reply I heard “yes, you had that the last time your visited us”. You cannot imagine my surprise when Maria at Portologia told me that she often uses our web site and knew that we had this particular vintage in September 2014. I was deeply impressed. Few, if any, wine bars has such an amount of vintage port to offer and after some discussion we found a vintage we had not sampled before, Quinta de Val da Figueira Vintage 2007. It was very good. I also had the opportunity to try the 2011 of the same quinta. However, the 2007 was better. Maria really provided a spectacular service and made us feel very welcome. We do recommend that you visit the new Portologia at your next visit in Porto.
Author: Jörgen

Easter 2016

We started Easter 2016 with a visit at the restaurant ”P.M och Vänner” in Växjö with their Great Menu and Great Wine Menu. Their Great Wine Menu was the best we have had in around 100 visits in Guide Michelin star restaurants around the world. Even their Menu was quite good and the restaurant is worth a travel to visit.

EasterWines2016At home on Good Friday we started with champagne of course. This day it was Salon vintage 1988. This was followed by wild tureen with red onion marmalade. The wines were 1979 Chardonnay from St. Clement in Napa and Dom. de Chevalier Blanc from 2008 in Grave. After that we enjoyed filled partridges and wigeons accompanied by some wonderful wines such as La Tache’ 1984, Ch. Haut-Brion 1984 and a marvelous Ch. Latour 1953. This was followed by a truffle cake with Sandeman’s vintage Port from 1927 and 1908 which both were on the top with the meal and even without any meal. Just Heaven!

SandemanVintagePorts19271908After a new Salon, this time it was vintage 1996, Easter Evening started with three minor starters i.e. yellow gazpacho, duck liver pâté and onion pie with salmon to which we drank Vendage 25 Octobre 1990 Sancerre from Lucien Crochet and Ch. Grillet 1985 from Rhone.

To the lamb we had Petrus 1973 and 1969. The 1973 was astonishing and a great surprise indeed for all of us and the 1969 very good also but not as great as the 1973. As dessert we had white chocolate ice-cream with Eitelsbacher Karthäufer Hofberger auslese 1959 from Ruwer and Ch. dÝquem from 1977 which closed our Easter celebration.

A new Port Wine Book which should be included in your library

christopher-pfaff-das-douro-talA new Port Wine book “Das Douro-Tal” (ISBN: 9783739215143) written by Christopher Pfaff. The book is a nearly 200 pages tourist travel guide about the Douro valley (sorry only in German language) with several colour photos. Of course all major Port Quintas, most of the Quintas who can be visited by tourists and Quintas where an overnight stay for tourists is possible are included. Moreover the guides include information about sightseeing and recommended restaurants and hotels. This is the first German book about this region ever. The price in Germany for the book is 13.99 € and it is also available in international markets like US and UK.

Queen Elisabeth’s Celebration

In week 14th it has been announced that Graham will honor Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday with a special Port Wine. The wine is a blend of 40% tawny from 1935, 20% of a tawny from 1824 and 40% of a tawny from 1912 which means an average aged of 90 years, i.e. the same age as the Queen in 2016. The Queen is one of the greatest ambassadors for Port in the world as she always in every official dinner at Windsor Castle and at Buckingham Palace will serve Port with the dessert.
There has been some problem with these bottles as the wines are neither colheita nor tawnies according to the law. Only one of the years has the Port Wines Institute’s registration and that is the 1935 due to the Port Wines Institute’s legalization was not until 1933. Symington, who own Graham, has got a special authorization to offer the wines to the market. The prices will be around 700 pounds+ shipping.