10 year old tawny port

Now, I can hardly claim to be a connoisseur (nor can I claim to be able to spell connoisseur). My dad once ordered the full range of ports in a restaurant off the Strand and Anne and I had to guess which was which, and which we liked best. We both got everything wrong.

It was like that fantastic skit Mel Brooks does on chat-shows where he does a blind wine-tasting, which starts with him saying "It's a Chateau Lafittes, premier cru 1953, no pardon, 1957, am I right? and culminates with him asking "Is it a red wine?"

Some years later we spent a lovely afternoon in Graham's port lodge in Porto, which taught us everything a bluffer could possibly want to know about port, but I was so pissed when I left all I remember was a liking for the 10 year old tawny stuff and that's been my adopted port of choice ever since.

Of course, you have to drink it once you've uncorked it, so today's traipse up the Long Mynd is going to seem a touch more challenging than normal...

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