Reflections on significant ports past and present

I went to a wonderful tasting of vintage ports considered landmarks by the Symington family yesterday. (Yes, not the perfect preamble to conducting the Oxford Companion pre-launch tasting at the FT that evening – but fortunately most of the ports were so beautifully mature that they were not of the tooth-blacking sort.)

 

We went back to Warre 1927 and 1934 and other memorable stars included Dow 1963 and Graham 1970. See my tasting notes in full, but in the meantime here are a few tangential observations.