There is a lot of misunderstanding about the whole business of 'port and cigars'. After a high-class meal in some societies it is considered etiquette for the ladies to leave, but if you don't go no one seems to make you and you get some decent brandy and cigars plus perhaps a few jokes you haven't heard before. Incidentally, when offered port you should say, 'Ah, yes, I will have a little port.' Everyone says this. You have to say it even if what you intend is a lot of port. The port wine is always passed round to the left (to port). The problem is that if you miss the port as it passes you, on account of perhaps you are lighting another cigar or trying to think up a new joke, it is very bad form to ask for it to be passed back. The rules say you should pass your empty glass to the left so that it can catch up with the decanter, be filled by the person holding the decanter and passed back to you. Now, this can cause difficulties, because by then everyone except you has been drinking the port, and what with one thing or another you can find that your glass moves around the table slower than the port and the decanter gets back to you before you get your glass back. It's not good manners to hang on to it until your glass catches up, because people downstream from you will be dying of thirst. I find the best way is to run around the table until you're ahead of the decanter, pull the chair out from under some other diner, and be sitting there ready when the port comes past. I've done this several times and there's been no complaints, so it's probably good manners.
