I'm more of a beer drinker than wine, so pardon my ignorance on this topic. I have a few bottles of Port that I bought to try out. The lady at the store said that some Ports contain some sediment and should be decanted before drinking - i.e. pour the wine out of the bottle and filter out any sediment. Unfortunately, this was about all the info she could give me.

So........is this true or is it overkill? Also, how do I know if a particular Port needs this kind of attention?

As an occasional port drinker I've found that some ports have a lot of particulate matter at the bottom of the bottle. I've found that simply pouring off that last glass in the bottle slowly and incompletely takes care of the problem sufficiently for trouble free drinking.

What cigarprimate said. Don't worry about it and just pour slowly. I've never had a port that gets sediment, but I have had some wine that did, oh wait, port is a wine, heheheeeeee.

I have seen this before, but usually with very old port. I had some 150 year old before, that my friend had to pour through a strainer. But it was good. Like liquid candy. No kidding.

I've only had it a couple of times, but never noticed this problem.

Puskarich,
By and large, the only Ports that throw off sediment are Vintage Ports. Ruby and Tawny Ports are blended wines from multiple years and usually clean as a whistle. You may find a small amount of sediment in these wines, but it would be so small that I wouldn't bother. Tawny's are by far my favorite. Even though I was born across the bay from Lisbon, the Australian Ports are really good and less expensive too.