Port Tasting

The port tasting this evening was good, although it did give me some thoughts on how it could be improved in the future... We had so many people sign up that we'd moved the event into the Smoking Room, which made for a really elegant setting. Two long tables under the chandeliers, with plenty of people gathered for tasting and talking. There were many new faces that I hadn't seen before, which was really nice. The evening was incredibly hot though, so most people were boiling. This chap I know, the German PhD student, had made the trek down from Cambridge, so I sat with him, and did have fun tasting the ports.

The gave us some cheesy iced pink stuff at the start that I thought was just fruit juice, but turned out to be some sort of "light port", that was very refreshing on such a hot day. We all took our seats for the tasting, and made our way through everything from a Taylor 10-year old Tawny, to a 1983 and a 1970 Taylor vintage.

Unfortunately, the guy who led the tasting, really pitched it waaaaay above our heads, and would NOT SHUT UP for over an hour. I mean seriously, there were no pauses or breaks of any kind, he just kept droning on. With so many people there, folks wanted a chance to talk to their neighbours and get to know new people, but this guy never gave us a chance. As a result, the murmur of conversation grew under his talking, until at one point the chairman of the Younger Member's committee even had to stand up to ask people to quiet down, as we couldn't hear the guy. Except what kind of public speaker can't realise he's totally mis-judged his audience, and just plows ahead when what he's doing is so obviously not working? (For instance, at one point he was just saying, "We didn't include any ruby ports in this tasting, because you all know what rubies taste like", and you could just see lots of people shooting each other confused looks).

I ended up in the bar with two Magdalene boys afterwards, and I think that they actually had a fair number of good points about it. Which is that the concept was good, but the execution needed improvement. They suggested what I thought would be a really good idea, a "wine tasting for beginners" class, led perhaps by a younger member themselves who was a wine enthusiast. Covering topics like:
- How to taste a wine. What you're looking for in terms of clarity, legs, when you swirl the wine and sniff it.
- How to choose a wine from a wine list. More than just picking the cheapest one!
- How to read wine bottle labels. Because let's face it, in the supermarket we just pick wines with pretty labels.
- Understanding grapes. What makes a Chardonnay, a Savuingon Blanc, a Pinot Noir, and how grapes differ from blended or regional wines like Bordeaux.

And of course, giving plenty of pauses to allow people time to talk and socialise. Because we're younger members, that's what we're here for!

After the tasting, I thought people would hang out at the bar or on the terrace, but I didn't really get much of a chance to really talk to new people (due to the guy who wouldn't shut up, as previously mentioned). Something that truly puzzles me is how the chairman of the Younger Member's Committee likes for all those of us on the committee to sit together, which in my mind is counter-productive, as we should always be sitting with people we don't know to talk to more members. Hence, I hope she wasn't annoyed with me that I totally ignored her directive to sit with the committee, and kept avoiding just getting caught up only talking to them afterwards, as I was really trying to circulate.

After it became apparent that things at the O&C were slowing down, and the Magdalene boys left (my only entertainment for the evening), I decided to pop in at the Lansdowne to see who was there. Almost nobody was, and I should have realised that the rest of Clubland would have been at the Jazz evening at the Reform Club.

As I was standing at the bar to get a glass of water (It's 85 degrees out and I was dying) I started chatting to this random cute guy who was standing there. I was then quite surprised when after about 15 minutes, the Young Dutchman bounded in, wrapped this guy up in a bear hug, chatted excitedly with him as though he were a long-lost friend, and then left within 30 seconds (without saying good-bye to me). WTF was that?

Still surprised by this sudden interruption, I turned back to the matter at hand, which is that there was a reasonably cute guy standing there who was obviously interested in me. Unfortunately he was fiddling with a cigarette, obviously looking for a break to go out and smoke it, so finally I had pity on him and allowed him to lead me outside to the patio so he could stand with me and smoke.

We found some seats, and as as we were sitting there I could tell he was obviously into me, but too tipsy to keep up his end of the conversation as well as he should have. I hate how that happens, where boys become more flirtatious because they've had something to drink, but because of the drink, they are terrible at flirting! Not sure if because he's Norwegian, and not good at English, but don't all Scandanavians speak perfect English?

Finally, I realised I was bored and just wanted to go home. So gave him my card, told him to call me, and then didn't fight it when he leaned in for the kiss. Full-on, but no tongue. I think that's as far as you can go when you're out in public, but was nice to be kissed. I needed some sort of distraction.

I hope he doesn't actually call (he smokes, after all), but it was a fine distraction for an evening...