Champion Ports. – Episode #102

October 6, 2006

Wines tasted in this episode:

Today Gary tastes four ports and matches them with one of his favorite cheeses with port. Sit back and enjoy this episode on one of the great dessert wines. More viewer questions answered. Have a great weekend everyone!

113 Responses

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October 9, 2006

Tony S.
Great episode Gary, I love Port…my wife hates it. So I rarely drink them, I just save them for special occasions. Also, I LOVED your ending, wine is meant to be enjoyed by everyone, not just the successful. It just sucks that most wineries nowadays cater to the rich. It’s sad. I love wine very much, but I hate that side of it.

QOD: I kind of fell into wine. I didn’t know anything about it, didn’t even think I liked it, and I was working two jobs–one as a Pizza Hut shift manager (which I dreaded and didn’t want to even imagine myself staying there) and the other as a telemarketer. The telemarketer thing was just to slowly ween myself out of Pizza Hut before moving onto something else…ANYTHING else. Anyway, a friend of mine was working as a temp person for a wine auction company here in Chicago, that was back in 1997. They needed a full-time warehouse guy, and he told me about the job opening. I applied, told them I knew nothing about wine and walla! Here I am now, still learning, but I’ve come a loooong way. Now I inspect the wine that comes in, rather than shipping it out.

I guess my goal now, is just to enjoy wine with friends. Even though I’m surrounded by fine wine and I get to taste them at tastings, I can’t afford them. So, I’m always looking for that great bargain that doesn’t taste like crap. That’s why I like your show. You weed out the crap for us.

Alright, well, this posted too late on Friday, so it’s lunch time on Monday and I gotta get back to work. I hope nobody is celebrating Columbus day…but instead, if you have it off, I hope you’re celebrating just having a Monday off…three day weekend’s are always great! See you in a couple hours or so…hopefully.

GO BEARS!!!!!–truly the best overall team in the NFL right now. Haven’t been able to say that for a while!
T
October 9, 2006

Lawrence Leichtman
Gary, thanks for reviewing my favorite wines but I don’t know about buying too many new ones as I’m not sure I will last 20 years much less wait that long. Just now drinking 70’s. Do you have any opinion on Ports not from Portugal such as some of the California or Australia Port makers. I love Prager Ports but I know many who say they aren’t real ports so why drink them?
October 9, 2006

Julius
Regarding the keeping of Port after opening, the following should help.

“As soon as bottles have been opened, Port is meant to be kept for a limited time only. Young Tawny and modern bottled Ruby, Ruby-Reserve/VC and LBV will stay good for 3 or 4 weeks. They can be closed with their original stopper cork.
For Tawny with indication of age and Colheita the risk of deterioration is less, because these wines also come in contact with oxygen during cask maturing. Sometimes you read about a storage life of months.
Traditionally bottled Port, and especially an older Vintage, may obviously deteriorate already within one day. So a fine vintage Port should be drunk the day it is opened.”
October 9, 2006

Brandon M
BTW…if I give the T-Shirts to Gary, he could charge a couple of dollars over cost for the shirts, and then we could give the money to charity. I think this community probably has a real great way to help our larger community…just a thought.

B
October 9, 2006

Brandon M
Voting is closed for the VaynerNAMES…over 500 votes! Thanks everyone.
Thanks to Big Billy From Big D for keeping the word out there and getting people to vote!

And the winner is: Wine Librarians with 282 votes.

I went through and cleaned the database as best as possible…there were a lot of fake votes for Vaniacs (over 100), so I pulled them out. I will post T-shirt designs as soon as possible. I will also be setting up a “request” form over at vaynervote.com to see how many people are actually going to be at the party, and interested in having a shirt. Gary…cmon man…when / where????

Thanks again for your votes

B
October 9, 2006

Dave F
Gary,

3 or 4 questions on Port storage after a bottle has been opened with no answers. Well??? Will it keep or not. I was hoping I could put a nipple on an old vintage port and take small nips off it for months… Any chance of that?

DF
October 9, 2006

Italian Stallion
That last sentence was not grammatically correct…it should read “Please help with these Gary, as I am sure many people will find themselves in the same situation”.
October 9, 2006

Grant Gallagher
HEY – good to beback. Thank you!

I agree that the Dows is usually pretty light. I haven’t tasted Broadbent. I was a bit surprised that you didn’t taste Graham’s. Recently discovered Warre (war-ey)….yum yum yum

G
October 9, 2006

Italian Stallion
Hey Gary!!

I used to be a huge collector of baseball cards and autographs. I actually just purchased an AMAZING collection. I bought a Mickey Mantle signed baseball, a Joe Dimaggio signed baseball that was thrown out on opening day about 7 ago (not sure exactly when), 2 Mantle signed 8 x 10s, a Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle 8 x 10 signed by BOTH!!! A 8 x 10 signed my Ted Williams and a 8 x 10 signed by 15 of the members of the 500 homerun club. I got these from my Uncle’s best friend….he is a huge collector and bought all of these from an old man who lives upstate…the old man got all the autographs himself ever the years and wanted to get rid of his collection and we are fortunate enought to grab ‘em. Sorry to run on a tangent, but I figured you’d like the story. Anyways….GREAT SHOUTOUT TO ROCKY!!!!!! As you can see from my name, I am the biggest Rocky fan in the world. ROCKY is to me what the JETS and wine are to you.

QOD: This follows Jason R’s quetion about buying wine at the wine store that is at room temp. What if the bottles were standing up, and the store was warmer…like temperature in the mid 70s???? Also if the bottles were kept in an area that was under a light, is that also gonna funk up the wine? Please help with these Gary, as I am sure this same situation many people will find themselves in.
October 9, 2006

David K
Gary -

What wine do you recommend drinking after your favorite football team takes a 41-0 ass whipping? Just curious, will there be free shipping to Jacksonville until the end of the year?

Go Ravens!
October 9, 2006

Julius
In regard to the 2005 Bordeaux vintage, the following item from the Wine & Spirits magazine indicates why some of us won’t buy first growths (not unlike Jaye’s comment on vintage port). It refers to the 2005 Latour.

“One poignant moment during our tastings was when Michael Broadbent MW, the venerable wine critic realized that he would no longer be on this earth when this wine reached its peak. We promised we would send him our tasting notes in heaven!”
October 9, 2006

Tony manning
Thanks for finally doing a review on ports. I have been waiting a while for this show.
Thanks Gary.
http://www.thewineglass.net
October 9, 2006

Rick McQ
Gary:

Are you sure you didn’t mean to write Chargers 23 Steelers 13??
October 9, 2006

Seth - MacGeek
Why don’t you use a different glass?!
October 8, 2006

Tony
Yanks gunned down and Jets destroyed. Me thinks Gary is going to be in a bit of a down mood tomorrow. Guess there’s still time to become a Mets fan.
October 8, 2006

Denise
SeanM, you have a sense of humor! : )
October 8, 2006

SeanM
Are you buying Denise? j/k
October 8, 2006

Denise
I’ve noticed some posts re: the Super Tasting. Anyone interested in the potential of a WLTV After-Party on the 10th?
October 8, 2006

Jill
ouch! 41 to nothing. What up with that? Pats… P-A-T-S
I got interested in expanding my wine knowledge back in the early 80’s. I was moving up the culinary ladder from sous chef and wanted to pair wines with foods. Things were a lot different 26 years ago. A restaurant bottle of port once open merely sat on the back bar with other high percentage wines (sherry, madeira, marsala) and gradually was consumed.
GV, really interested in your thoughts regarding port storage once it has been opened.
Thanks, from South Coast Massachusetts.

P.s Joe Torre too?
October 8, 2006

Ed R
That might help
October 8, 2006

Ed R
Although Leftwich was just mauled.
October 8, 2006

Ed R
Gary, terrible question of the day, may I suggest like someone else did some things have jumped the shark and if this is the best you can do I say you got 25 episodes left and this is coming from somebody who watches every episode and has since the beginning. Hopefully, this inspires you to prove me wrong. As far as I can tell 3-5 people addressed your question and half of those answers were to get drunk. The rest was stuffy nonsense which I thought we were trying to avoid. I am currently watching Cowboys/Eagles game hoping for T.O. to be mamed. Jet update 28-0 Jaguars second quarter, so 56-13 is looking more likely.
Sorry,
Ed
October 8, 2006

SS Chris
METS win!! I’m taking my 3 boys to game 1 of NLCS!

Even if you’re not a MET fan, you have to admit that they are a likable team.

As I write this, I have a bottle of the ‘03 Pessagno Zinfandel (Ep #63)…looking forward to it!!
October 8, 2006

Rick McQ
Gary:

Why do you have the Jags 23 and the Jets 13 on the board behind you in episode 101?
October 8, 2006

Rick McQ
Gary:

Very interesting episode. I have a couple questions on Port. If you open the bottle should it be treated like wine and consumed like wine within a day or two or like a liquor? If you like wine will you like port or is it a different taste?

I drank Ermitage Du Pic St Lour 2004 over the weekend. Which I thought was very good.

On the back of the bottle is says:

“Good wine is a Necessity of life for me” – Thomas Jefferson. This would be a nice line to close a show.