Roll of honour?

[uncle tom]

Talk to the producers of today about the old English bottlers, and they often go out of their way to demonise them; yet my own observations suggest that old English bottlings are as good, and often better; than those from Oporto.

The tragedy is that the history of the English bottlers is being lost. As far as I know, no history of them has been recorded; and JDAW's researches indicate that the shippers archives omit to mention the bottlers they supplied. All we have are the labels and capsules of bottles past.

Should we, belatedly, attempt to compile an incomplete archive of bottlers and the wines they bottled? And if so, how should it be presented?

Tom

[DRT]

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the first paragraph as the shippers I have talked to did rate many of the old merchants as being good and reputable but cite the less reputable ones and the lack of control as being the reason for the switch to Oporto-only bottling.

But I do agree that this is information that is worth collating as the knowledge and data are vanishing with every year that passes so if it isn't done now it never will be.

[Axel P]

I do believe that most of the "bad reputation" the shippers might have is exactly because there is no real history about the conditions - even the times - when the port has actually been bottled. Since there are definitely one or two (or three) bottlers with a rather below average reputation, this might ruin the reputation of those who were and are taking these matters very seriously.

Axel

[Alex Bridgeman]

This is a subject which is quite close to my heart and one which - if I had the time, which I don't at the moment - I would actively collect data. As it is, I have been recording bottles which I open which were bottled in the UK and have been noting which wines have been bottled by which UK merchants. There is also a lot of data available on this website and FTLOP and in the books on port that Derek has been listing. One day, I would love to have the time to be able to go through all these sources and compile the data into something useful. But that's only a pipe dream...