Decanting Vintage Port

[bigred]

How to decant Vintage Port..

[winoweenie]

Hi Bigred and welcome to the board. I normally stand the bottle upright for 2 days, pull the cork, then carefully pour the stuff into a decanter with the bottle in front of a lamp. When your see the sediment start to show, carefully put the botle upright. If it happens to be a really great vintage port, then I get a coffee filter, put it over a large brandy snifter and extract every lil' drop I can. Be sure you keep the bottle in the same position it was stored when pouring. Yummy stuff. WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]

[BojoLay]

WW,
Can you elaborate on why you have to decant Port?

[winoweenie]

Well Bojo the main reason is that the seeds, skins, and grape solids form a pretty solid sludge as the port ages. This sediment is very unpleasant but, as ports, like great wines are not filtered or fined, all of this stuff settles on the side of the bottle as it ages. By doing as described above you can avoid this stuff and suck-up all the good juice. WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]

[BojoLay]

tnks WW. 'learn something everyday -
As a youngen I use to watch Dad and Uncle sit on the porch every evening and share a small bottle of Gallo Port. My first impression was that Port must be a cheap wine. Then several years later as an older youngen I happen to see a bottle of port going for hundreds of dollars! Several of them. What gives? Is Port a delicatable that all should try at some time or another?

[winoweenie]

Bojo-buddy, we're talking about 2 different things here. Vintage Ports from the great Port houses of Portugal have as much resemblence to Gallo and Christian Bros Ports as Naomi Campbell does to Whoopie Goldberg. Fonseca, Dows, Taylor-Fladgate, Warre, Sandeman,Graham, Croft, and Quinta de Noval Nacional,to name a few, are some of the greatest pleasures man can derive from the grape. They have great ageing potential and reward the patient with sensory pleasures beyond description. Don't miss an opportunity to try a vintage port. WW