Comparing the bottlers

[jdaw1]

In days of yore much port was UK bottled. This ended with the 1970 vintage. If there is to be a comparison of the bottlers taking one shipper from one year from multiple bottlers this ought to be done soon, before the youngest of these wines have started to fade.

The plan is to find a single port such that, between us, we have ≈8 different bottlers, and perhaps more than one bottle from each. It will be a hard-work tasting, but interesting. Gentlemen: time is running out. The generation that comes after us cannot do this for themselves: it falls to our slight shoulders to carry this burden. We must not fail them.

Possible ports: Taylor 1963; Graham 1970; Fonseca 1966. Let’s start with T63: please, what bottlers do you have?

Edit: G70 added.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I have T63 bottlings from Berry Brothers, Army & Navy and Oporto bottlings. None are immediately at hand so some notice would be required.

[Axel P]

I have G70 from Army&Navy, Oporto and we should get some Corney and Barrows. Actually I think we should firstly try to locate some Ports which were imported by these eight different merchants. Any idea of how to do this without the IVDP?

I like the idea a lot.

Axel

[jdaw1]

This and the next few posts moved from Fabulous tastings that should have happened with us.

Unless I am mistaken, this is a theme that is now probably lost to history, with very little chance of repeating it. I think the closest I can recall was this tasting when we compared a London and Oporto bottling of 1967 Vargellas.

I hate to say this, given the nature of some people here, but what chance we could put together an offline where the theme was different bottlings of the same port?

I guess 1970 would be the last vintage where this was possible?

Such a tasting was being considered in the thread Comparing the bottlers.

[benread]

Such a tasting was being considered in the thread Comparing the bottlers.

Great minds think alike!

[jdaw1]

Great minds think alike!

Fools never differ.

[benread]

Great minds think alike!

Fools never differ.

Nonetheless, I am surprised that being the obsessive compulsives that we can be collectively, we have not pursued this with more vigour!

[DRT]

Finding a sufficient number of bottles from different bottlers and all with impecable, known provenance is the problem. If the provenance is unknown the evaluation is somewhat meaningless as it would then be more of an evaluation of the storage conditions rather than of the relative merits of the bottlers. That would not have been such a problem for a club like Brooks as most of the wines probably sat in their cellar since being bottled in 1929 or were sourced from other clubs or direct from merchants. If we tried repeating the T27 tasting we would be sourcing bottles that had spent their lives travelling around the auction circuit and probably one or two trips over the atlantic.

Perhaps a very robust wine like Fonseca 70 or 66 would be the best candidate as they were widely UK bottled and are in good supply. Dare I suggest a parallel vertical of F70 & F66 with one bottle of each from 6 different bottlers?

JDAW: you may wish to split the last few posts off and add them to the discussion thread linked to above?

[jdaw1]

The previous few posts moved from Fabulous tastings that should have happened with us.

[jdaw1]

Dare I suggest a parallel vertical of F70 & F66 with one bottle of each from 6 different bottlers?

Yes. Who has what?

[WS1]

Hi there,

I am also interested in this. Have though no T63, only G70 oporto bts and currently no F66 bts. Have KillerB problems with F66.
Have quite a few different F70 bottelings; Withhams, Army&Navy, Corney Barrow and another i forgot.

regards

WS1

[DRT]

I think I have the C&B bottling of F66 - so we may have our first pair

[VJR]

Interesting suggestion - Agree provenance needs to be impeccable to render useful results.
I have pristine F70 A+N and John Harvey bottlings and T63 Grants of St. James.
When is this scheduled for?
Best, Victor