Pass The Port
~~First there were twelve~~
It was our usual beer, wines and spirits order from the small independent Brewery in West Dorset. The order reflected the type of trade we had in our country pub. Trade ranging from hard working, cider drinking farmers smelling of sheep dip and manure, to champagne sipping television personalities smelling of Guerlain Vetiver, half-a-bitter drinking pensioners at lunchtimes eking out their pensions, and good food lovers, wanting the dry sherry, good wines and Port to compliment the fine fare we offered for lunch and evenings.
Summertime 1980; busy holidays season in the coastal area, with plenty of visitors plus the annual Agricultural Show. Though not directly involved in the Show itself, it was a tradition that the farming community, who were very local to our pub, always had their own Annual Dinner with us. Very macho; just the men; men who I only usually saw in their working clobber; twenty local farmers and meat magnates scrubbed up well in Dinner Suits, and smelling of Brut rather than Dip. They were terrific spenders, had no taste at all, but great fun, outrageous, yet respectful to the female waitresses, to me and to my husband, the licensee and the Chef. Considering they all bred beef, slaughtered beef, filleted beef, sold beef, their choice of roast rib of beef, well hung and cooked rare was no surprise. Considering this was the eighties, their choice of deep fried battered mushrooms and garlic mayonnaise to start, with Banoffee Pie to finish was no surprise. But they had to finish with local cheeses, the most famous being Blue Vinney, and Port! They had to have Port, late bottled would suffice.
Hence our Brewery order included a case of late bottled Port. To be served long after the last legal punter had left, often around three in the morning. These men worked hard, had rough hands and the stamina to drink copious amounts of anything and still be up and working at dawn. I checked the delivery, made sure it was correct and signed for it. I noted the price of the Port as around four pounds a bottle and put the case in the cellar. Perhaps not as observant as I should be, and because the label on the bottle said Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port I thought this was another name for late bottled. I was front of house, taking food orders, always behind the bar, making the bills out, maintaining some sort of order out of chaos. My husband was purely kitchen, with a brilliant business brain, and a superb chef. We worked well together.
The twenty farmers and meat magnates arrived looking ruggedly handsome in their ill fitting Dinner Suits. There was something rather sexy about these earthy men, whose hands were usually up a bullocks botty or splitting a pigs rib cage, arriving at the pub looking more like a male stripper act than diners! They ate, laughed, joked, drank beer, cider, wine, and spirits, flirted and made a lot of noise and created a wonderful atmosphere. They had a certain finesse about them, and always liked the Port decanted, which I dutifully did in the kitchen. My husband was still in there, clearing up the last of the debris that always remains in a catering kitchen. I took the decanted Port into the dining room.
Back in the kitchen, his head was buried in a wine manual. “Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is a declared vintage year. How many bottles have you decanted for ***** sake?” “Just the one!” “Quick! Don’t decant any more. Give them something else. They won’t know the difference. They’ve had so much of everything, they’re all smoking cigars. Their palates are B*****ed! This is worth seventeen pounds a bottle. How much did we pay?” “Four pounds” I said cursing my lack of knowledge a propos the difference between Late Bottled and Vintage Port. I tippy-toed back into the Dining Room; I saw the empty decanter, and heard them demanding more Port, "as fine as the last one" they bellowed. The more sober of them asked me what the Port was, as it was the finest Port they’d ever tasted, and they’d supped some.
I thought quickly, disappeared into the kitchen, filled up the decanter with another ordinary Port from the cellar, returning to the Dining Room with the empty Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port to display, hoping they wouldn't notice the difference. Fortunately, their palates were shot away, and the rich, lingering taste of the original Vintage Port, along with the smuggled Havana Cigars they were smoking, were playing tricks on their taste buds. What a relief.
Taxis were called, and at two thirty in the morning, twenty well fed, drunk, happy farmers and meat magnates, with bow ties undone, cummerbunds loosened, faces red and paying a restaurant bill of hundreds of pounds fell into their cabs that were waiting in the Square to get them home to their wives and their beds.
~~Then there were eleven! ~~
The years passed by. We sold the pub, and then a restaurant. Every now and then we’d check on the value of the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port. Twenty five pounds a bottle; thirty pounds a bottle; thirty-five pounds a bottle; forty pounds a bottle; then in 1991, my husband died. I faithfully laid down the eleven remaining bottles of Port in the attic, as we’d always said we’d open and drink it on some special occasion; a birth, a marriage, but not a death.
Its 1996 and I’m living with Morty. He’s been playing golf, had more than a Happy Hour in the pub and he’s fallen asleep in the armchair. It’s 9.00pm and there’s knock at the front door. One of our joint close friends has been blown out by his wife and needs to talk. Morty is past being able to counsel anyone. I sit at the dining table with our mate and we drink everything alcoholic in the house and we do good talk. It’s 1.00am. Morty hasn’t stirred. This friend doesn’t want to go, that’s obvious, and we’ve no booze left. But I have.
There are eleven bottles of Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port in the attic. Fifty pounds a bottle by now I reckon. I look at our friend, and I weigh it all up. His need is greater than the fifty quid I’d get for the Port. I muse that I’ve carted this crate of Port around for sixteen years and never tasted it myself. Why not now? This guy knows his wine, and when he sees the bottle and the label, due to his emotional state, he weeps. I weep too at the thought of fifty pounds down the lavvy the next morning. He advises that I decant it, and the memories come flooding back to me of the farmers and the meat magnates dinner back in 1980. How things have changed, and I too get a tear in my eye, then control myself as I know it’s the wine getting to me as well. Life moves on my friends.
I get the tea strainer and a big glass jug and decant. The sediment in the bottle is at least two inches deep; the liquid in the jug is purple, black and rich. I fill two small Port glasses and we raise them to our lips; so smooth, so luscious, a head-ache in every sip. I felt as if this bottle of Port wasn’t wasted on this man. He needed my support and he appreciated it. Sharing the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port played a large part him regaining his faith in friends and human nature, as his wife had been having an affair with a friend. Morty woke up at 2.30am, asked what time it was, and went to bed. He doesn’t do good counselling. I woke in the morning with the driest mouth, the worst head, the most sluggish digestion I have ever had before or since, but our mate has never forgotten the support from that night, both from me and the Vintage Port and the gesture.
~~Then there were ten~~
Its now 1998, the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is valued at fifty-five pounds a bottle. My wonderful girlfriend, an ex-actress of a certain age, is celebrating her fourth wedding anniversary to a rich antique dealer. The old Scrote that cost Morty a £200 bet. My girlfriend flat shared with Linda La Plante in the 1960s, and was in the first ever episode of the Avengers with Patrick McNee and Honor Blackman, playing a flower seller. Morty and me were broke, but were going to supper at their house and needed to take something special with us; into the attic again, and another bottle of Vintage Port to be shared with special friends.
~~Then there were nine~~
Its now 2000, the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is valued at sixty pounds a bottle. Another male friend of ours is hitting fifty. Once again I trip to the attic, get another bottle down and give it as a present. We share it together after a splendid meal with him and his lady at his house. I still have a dreadful head the next morning when I wake up. My capital investment is dwindling. I had dreams of selling my Port on an online Auction site and perhaps with the proceeds, having a holiday, mending my forever needy car, updating my computer, paying for another Open University course, having plastic surgery.
~~Then there were eight~~
Its now 2005. I’ve been online and discovered the value of my Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port; ninety-nine pounds a bottle; twelve hundred pounds a case. All those years ago, we paid forty eight pounds for the entire case. I shall never sell them. I shall drink them or give them away. They are priceless. Each bottle I open, each bottle I drink, each bottle I share, and each bottle I give to a friend goes back to those heady days in 1980 when I was spontaneous, young, and went with the flow. I like to think I’m still like that, and live long enough to watch the next eight bottles be significant in my own life and the lives of my friends and family. Its impossible to put a price on that.
It was our usual beer, wines and spirits order from the small independent Brewery in West Dorset. The order reflected the type of trade we had in our country pub. Trade ranging from hard working, cider drinking farmers smelling of sheep dip and manure, to champagne sipping television personalities smelling of Guerlain Vetiver, half-a-bitter drinking pensioners at lunchtimes eking out their pensions, and good food lovers, wanting the dry sherry, good wines and Port to compliment the fine fare we offered for lunch and evenings.
Summertime 1980; busy holidays season in the coastal area, with plenty of visitors plus the annual Agricultural Show. Though not directly involved in the Show itself, it was a tradition that the farming community, who were very local to our pub, always had their own Annual Dinner with us. Very macho; just the men; men who I only usually saw in their working clobber; twenty local farmers and meat magnates scrubbed up well in Dinner Suits, and smelling of Brut rather than Dip. They were terrific spenders, had no taste at all, but great fun, outrageous, yet respectful to the female waitresses, to me and to my husband, the licensee and the Chef. Considering they all bred beef, slaughtered beef, filleted beef, sold beef, their choice of roast rib of beef, well hung and cooked rare was no surprise. Considering this was the eighties, their choice of deep fried battered mushrooms and garlic mayonnaise to start, with Banoffee Pie to finish was no surprise. But they had to finish with local cheeses, the most famous being Blue Vinney, and Port! They had to have Port, late bottled would suffice.
Hence our Brewery order included a case of late bottled Port. To be served long after the last legal punter had left, often around three in the morning. These men worked hard, had rough hands and the stamina to drink copious amounts of anything and still be up and working at dawn. I checked the delivery, made sure it was correct and signed for it. I noted the price of the Port as around four pounds a bottle and put the case in the cellar. Perhaps not as observant as I should be, and because the label on the bottle said Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port I thought this was another name for late bottled. I was front of house, taking food orders, always behind the bar, making the bills out, maintaining some sort of order out of chaos. My husband was purely kitchen, with a brilliant business brain, and a superb chef. We worked well together.
The twenty farmers and meat magnates arrived looking ruggedly handsome in their ill fitting Dinner Suits. There was something rather sexy about these earthy men, whose hands were usually up a bullocks botty or splitting a pigs rib cage, arriving at the pub looking more like a male stripper act than diners! They ate, laughed, joked, drank beer, cider, wine, and spirits, flirted and made a lot of noise and created a wonderful atmosphere. They had a certain finesse about them, and always liked the Port decanted, which I dutifully did in the kitchen. My husband was still in there, clearing up the last of the debris that always remains in a catering kitchen. I took the decanted Port into the dining room.
Back in the kitchen, his head was buried in a wine manual. “Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is a declared vintage year. How many bottles have you decanted for ***** sake?” “Just the one!” “Quick! Don’t decant any more. Give them something else. They won’t know the difference. They’ve had so much of everything, they’re all smoking cigars. Their palates are B*****ed! This is worth seventeen pounds a bottle. How much did we pay?” “Four pounds” I said cursing my lack of knowledge a propos the difference between Late Bottled and Vintage Port. I tippy-toed back into the Dining Room; I saw the empty decanter, and heard them demanding more Port, "as fine as the last one" they bellowed. The more sober of them asked me what the Port was, as it was the finest Port they’d ever tasted, and they’d supped some.
I thought quickly, disappeared into the kitchen, filled up the decanter with another ordinary Port from the cellar, returning to the Dining Room with the empty Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port to display, hoping they wouldn't notice the difference. Fortunately, their palates were shot away, and the rich, lingering taste of the original Vintage Port, along with the smuggled Havana Cigars they were smoking, were playing tricks on their taste buds. What a relief.
Taxis were called, and at two thirty in the morning, twenty well fed, drunk, happy farmers and meat magnates, with bow ties undone, cummerbunds loosened, faces red and paying a restaurant bill of hundreds of pounds fell into their cabs that were waiting in the Square to get them home to their wives and their beds.
~~Then there were eleven! ~~
The years passed by. We sold the pub, and then a restaurant. Every now and then we’d check on the value of the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port. Twenty five pounds a bottle; thirty pounds a bottle; thirty-five pounds a bottle; forty pounds a bottle; then in 1991, my husband died. I faithfully laid down the eleven remaining bottles of Port in the attic, as we’d always said we’d open and drink it on some special occasion; a birth, a marriage, but not a death.
Its 1996 and I’m living with Morty. He’s been playing golf, had more than a Happy Hour in the pub and he’s fallen asleep in the armchair. It’s 9.00pm and there’s knock at the front door. One of our joint close friends has been blown out by his wife and needs to talk. Morty is past being able to counsel anyone. I sit at the dining table with our mate and we drink everything alcoholic in the house and we do good talk. It’s 1.00am. Morty hasn’t stirred. This friend doesn’t want to go, that’s obvious, and we’ve no booze left. But I have.
There are eleven bottles of Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port in the attic. Fifty pounds a bottle by now I reckon. I look at our friend, and I weigh it all up. His need is greater than the fifty quid I’d get for the Port. I muse that I’ve carted this crate of Port around for sixteen years and never tasted it myself. Why not now? This guy knows his wine, and when he sees the bottle and the label, due to his emotional state, he weeps. I weep too at the thought of fifty pounds down the lavvy the next morning. He advises that I decant it, and the memories come flooding back to me of the farmers and the meat magnates dinner back in 1980. How things have changed, and I too get a tear in my eye, then control myself as I know it’s the wine getting to me as well. Life moves on my friends.
I get the tea strainer and a big glass jug and decant. The sediment in the bottle is at least two inches deep; the liquid in the jug is purple, black and rich. I fill two small Port glasses and we raise them to our lips; so smooth, so luscious, a head-ache in every sip. I felt as if this bottle of Port wasn’t wasted on this man. He needed my support and he appreciated it. Sharing the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port played a large part him regaining his faith in friends and human nature, as his wife had been having an affair with a friend. Morty woke up at 2.30am, asked what time it was, and went to bed. He doesn’t do good counselling. I woke in the morning with the driest mouth, the worst head, the most sluggish digestion I have ever had before or since, but our mate has never forgotten the support from that night, both from me and the Vintage Port and the gesture.
~~Then there were ten~~
Its now 1998, the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is valued at fifty-five pounds a bottle. My wonderful girlfriend, an ex-actress of a certain age, is celebrating her fourth wedding anniversary to a rich antique dealer. The old Scrote that cost Morty a £200 bet. My girlfriend flat shared with Linda La Plante in the 1960s, and was in the first ever episode of the Avengers with Patrick McNee and Honor Blackman, playing a flower seller. Morty and me were broke, but were going to supper at their house and needed to take something special with us; into the attic again, and another bottle of Vintage Port to be shared with special friends.
~~Then there were nine~~
Its now 2000, the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is valued at sixty pounds a bottle. Another male friend of ours is hitting fifty. Once again I trip to the attic, get another bottle down and give it as a present. We share it together after a splendid meal with him and his lady at his house. I still have a dreadful head the next morning when I wake up. My capital investment is dwindling. I had dreams of selling my Port on an online Auction site and perhaps with the proceeds, having a holiday, mending my forever needy car, updating my computer, paying for another Open University course, having plastic surgery.
~~Then there were eight~~
Its now 2005. I’ve been online and discovered the value of my Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port; ninety-nine pounds a bottle; twelve hundred pounds a case. All those years ago, we paid forty eight pounds for the entire case. I shall never sell them. I shall drink them or give them away. They are priceless. Each bottle I open, each bottle I drink, each bottle I share, and each bottle I give to a friend goes back to those heady days in 1980 when I was spontaneous, young, and went with the flow. I like to think I’m still like that, and live long enough to watch the next eight bottles be significant in my own life and the lives of my friends and family. Its impossible to put a price on that.
posted by Buggles Balham High Road at 7:01 AM
.JPG)
6 Comments:
What a wonderful story Mornev. Thanks for sharing it.
Brilliant - a great story, told with wit and humour. Poignant too. Publishable, I'd say, especially if you got down to the last one. Keep us posted...
Salivating...:-)
Thanks for the praise Rob - coming from you I am truly flattered. I also read on the web that the 1963 vintage should be drunk by 2009 so perhaps I can finish the story by then. On the other hand I could put a spurt on and drink the remaining bottles with friends and family and complete the historic adventures of a case of Port?
Nogbad, I am happy to share tales like this and pleased you enjoyed reading it. I can get quite upset when I re-read it myself as the associated memories are, as Rob says, very poignant.
Well I think I'll plan a trip to Dorset before 2009 - I can't see any other way I might even see a bottle of port worth that much money :-)
It's a beautiful story and as Rob says I think you should see if anyone will publish it - it deserves the widest possible audience and fully justifies why you are one of the world's natural bloggers.
I notice you only said 'see' a bottle of Port worth that much money and not 'drink'.
If it means finishing the story of the 1963 port in less than four years then it looks like a Port Party is due ;-)
I may well tidy it up and see if I can publish and be damned!!!!!!
I would not presume to invite myself to share such a special drink M but when you get yourself in print I'll bring some Champagne :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home