Everyone has a story to tell involving Port, no matter how strange, how amusing, even how embarrassing. Would you like to share yours with the 2500 honorary confrades all over the world? To get you going, we take you to Ghana where the etiquette of serving Port took a usual turn involving Bruce Guimaraens of Fonseca fame and a founding member of the Confraria.
Pass the Port…
For time immemorial, Port has been considered a noble drink whose enjoyment at the end of a meal is subject to strict etiquette – the aging of the wine, the careful decanting of the bottle into a crystal decanter, the use of appropriately-shaped glasses to enable the drinker to appreciate the qualities of the wine he is about to sip and, most importantly, passing the decanter from right to left to the person sitting next to him. Heaven help anyone who might break the rules!
This has always been the golden rule in the Factory House in Porto and, so you might believe, all over the world where Port, especially Vintage, is served. However, there is one country in which this is not so, and thereby lies a tale.
First, we must go back to 1989 when Bruce Guimaraens’ younger son, Christopher, when traveling through Africa, stopped in Accra, Ghana, to call on Mike Outo, one of his father’s close friends from 1955 when Bruce served as a young British army officer, and who had meanwhile reached the rank of General in the Ghanian Army. During their conversation, Christopher asked General Outo a question that still niggled his father: “How do you pass the Port in the regimental mess today?” “That’s funny,” General Outo replied. “There is an age-old tradition that in Ghana, the Port is always passed from left to right. I have always wondered about that.”
The explanation is best given by quoting Bruce as he frequently told the tale:
“When I left school, I enlisted in the Royal Marines and from there was transferred to Eton Hall Officer Cadet School. Graduating as a Second Lieutenant in 1955, I was seconded to the Royal Berkshire Regiment and from there, to the Royal West African Frontier Force, Princess Charlotte of Wales Gold Coast Regiment, and sent to Ghana before its independence.
Soon after I arrived, I attended my first formal officers’ mess dinner in Kumasi, the regimental headquarters south of Accra. It was a splendid affair and, as was the custom, the meal ended with Vintage Port. When the decanter came to me, I filled my glass and passed the Port to the person on my left and so it traveled around the table. However, perhaps because I may have imbibed too much table wine, perhaps because I was overwhelmed by the solemnity of the occasion, a first for this very raw 19-year-old on his first posting to Africa, or probably really because I have always confused my left and my right, I thought something was odd and resolved to speak up.
I stood up and nervously called out to the Commander:
- Sir, the Port is being passed the wrong way!
- What? Who is that? Hmph.
- 2nd Lieutenant Bruce Guimaraens, Sir.
- What do you mean the Port is going around the wrong way? It has always been passed from left to right. Explain yourself.
- I am from Porto, Portugal, Sir. My family are Port Wine Shippers and in the Factory House in Porto, the Port is always passed from right to left.
- That is news to me, but if you are, as you appear to be, an expert on the matter, we shall pass the Port from right to left.
I sat down and the penny dropped. Oops! Left to right…. Right to left…. Left to right. I had got it all wrong, but there was no way I was going to admit it. Heaven knows what punishment would have befallen me! Two years later, I returned to England and the Port continued to be passed around the wrong way and so I believe, is still doing so today.”