Port Barrels

[Teisto]

Hi all,

So I got a 10 litre barrel for Xmas from the wife from Seppetsfield and loaded it up with some of their bulk port which isn't old stock. I have heard numerous other stories of people putting things like prunes in to add to the richness etc.

What can you / can't you add to give it more character or beef up the richness of it?

Would welcome any information on this. Thanks

[Michael McNally]

Obi-wan Kenobi: Use the Search Function Luke........

This is a particularly comprehensive thread from a couple of years back: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6782

If you type port barrel into the search box there are some other, shorter, more specific threads too.

Hmmmm Fathers day coming up..........

Have to be next year.

Cheers

Michael

[Teisto]

Thanks - should have known there would be a plethora of information. So the long and the short of it is use mainly bulk, top up with some older stuff and recommendations about putting some decent muscat in as well to help it along?

[Michael McNally]

Not sure about mixing port with muscat....what would it be called? Puscat? Muscort?

Cheers

Michael

[chillwrx]

Been having great success blending 375 mls of Para (current seppetsfield version) with half a bottle of the chateau reynella 16 year old port. The older port mellows out the Younger Para without losing any of it's freshness. I have not used barrels though as I like to chill the Port before drinking. The Para Bottle/or other screwcapped bottles work equally well as I tend to drink the contents too quickly for aged characters to take place.

[BlaCkAdDa]

add a bit of aged muscat but not much... adding some grand muscat (about 200mls or less) to my 10l barrel made quite a difference.

[BlaCkAdDa]

Actually while we're on the topic, I got a muscat barrel (with muscat in) recently.
The first pours had a lot of 'floaties' in it that were grey/greenish in colour

Now several weeks later those floaties are very limited.

Should I be concerned, it looks like maybe some sort of film formed on the barrel at some stage and it wasn't cleaned out? This was purchased from a winery where I bought my port barrel so I wasn't expecting any issues I just dont know if I should be worried or whether its just from the transit and will settle now the barrel is sitting still, or whether I should drain/filter the muscat in there rinse barrel out and put it back in?

[Cloth Ears]

We had a small barrel on the go for a few years. Started it with a few nice bottles plus (purists...look away) half a litre of cognac. Left this for the better part of 9 months, drained off about half of it and started adding various old vintage ports that we picekd up cheap from auctions. Because we were buying many bottles, cheaply, we got quite a few 'foul grape' which went straight down the sink. But we picked up quite a few excellent gems (one had lost all it's colour and was clear, poured like honey and tasted like port!) that were perfect and melded perfectly with the fortified stuff in the barrel. We kept it for about 6-7 years until a friend of ours drained it without letting us know and it was ruined.

Sigh! Good Luck!