The 2007 Vintage Port Declaration: Preview Tasting””New York

[jdaw1]

Thank you for putting yourself through the inconvenience of having to attend on our behalf and for posting your thoughts and pictures.

As you say, a great inconvenience on your behalf. To be fair to me, let’s agree without further ado that all who read this thread owe me a bottle of a reasonable (or better) 1966?

[uncle tom]

An extra detail from David Guimaraens, accidentally omitted from the earlier report. There are 4000 bottles of Taylor Vargellas Vinha Velha 2007, but those vines if I understood correctly could make about 30000 bottles. So the full Taylor blend contains about 87% of the TVVV output: the separate declaration ‘cost’ the Taylor blend only 13% of this juice.

Taylor did stand accused (by Mayson, I think..) of robbing the 2000 VP of the best juice in order to make the VVV of that year. Whether or not that was the reason there was no 2003 VVV is uncertain. The accusation must have stung though, to make DG highlight the numbers.

The Taylor wines look pale in your photo - I assume your camera flash made them appear lighter than they really are..

The pricing issue is a bit of a nightmare for the producers. Have they ever before had to contemplate releasing a general declaration at lower prices than the previous one?

The exchange rate is a very big problem for all exporters in the eurozone, and I'm not confident that this will correct any time soon.

For the port producers, it is particularly difficult. Their key markets for high value wines; the US and UK, while officially on a course of astronomic borrowing, look more likely to print much of the money instead; leading to devaluation and inflation. In the eurozone, on the other hand, a lack of consensus among the currency's participants, aided and abetted by an ideological desire in certain quarters to see the euro trump the dollar as the world's primary reserve currency; looks set to propel the euro to even greater highs, and much of the eurozone toward a deflationary depression.

Countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain have much to gain from a course of wholesale devaluation, to put their exports and tourist industries back on a competitive footing; while other members of the eurozone, Germany in particular, will want nothing to do with a policy that promises high inflation.

The options seem to come down to either a fragmentation of the eurozone, or an ongoing commitment by the wealthier members to bail out the poorer ones on a massive scale. The second option would seem politically impossible to sell, even in the best of times, so the first option is beginning to look inevitable.

For the Port producers, it couldn't happen too soon.

Tom

[Axel P]

thanks, Jdaw, very interesting.

Axel

[g-man]

Here's the 10$ question Julian, would you buy a few cases of the 07 fonseca?

[jdaw1]

Here's the 10$ question Julian, would you buy a few cases of the 07 fonseca?

I thought prices weren’t being revealed until next month. If you have inside knowledge that Fonseca ’07 is to be only $10 a case, well, it would be cheap at a dozen times the price. Sure: lots.

[g-man]

Here's the 10$ question Julian, would you buy a few cases of the 07 fonseca?

I thought prices weren’t being revealed until next month. If you have inside knowledge that Fonseca ’07 is to be only $10 a case, well, it would be cheap at a dozen times the price. Sure: lots.

Would the same hold true at a $50 question?

[uncle tom]

Would the same hold true at a $50 question?

Per case? Sure.

More seriously though, if you take the release price of the 1977 Fonseca (£48/doz) and adjust for inflation, you arrive at £167/doz today (around $250)

Adding duty and VAT brings that out to approximately £18/bottle - a price I would consider acceptable, for a wine to lay down, if the critical acclaim suggested that it was of similar quality.

Unfortunately, a return to a pricing structure that rewards consumers for buying bottles at release and laying them down, seems very distant at the present time.

Tom

[Alex Bridgeman]

But today, that Fonseca which cost around £167 a dozen would retail for about £110 per bottle or £1,320 per dozen. Assuming that at auction with good provenance you would pay roughly 20% less or £1,056. It will have cost about £6 per year to store the port so by buying on release and selling today you will have made yourself a profit of about £700 over 30 years on an initial outlay of £167 - roughly a 5.7% compound return on the initial investment.

Not a great return and I'm not sure how it compares with having invested in other things over the last 30 years, but I have invested in worse!

But what this simple analysis overlooks is that it might have been possible to have bought the Fonseca 1977 in the mid-80s for something less than £167 per dozen.

However, I shall wait for the pricing indications with eagerness and will almost certainly buy some port on release and top up in years to come.

[g-man]

But today, that Fonseca which cost around £167 a dozen would retail for about £110 per bottle or £1,320 per dozen. Assuming that at auction with good provenance you would pay roughly 20% less or £1,056. It will have cost about £6 per year to store the port so by buying on release and selling today you will have made yourself a profit of about £700 over 30 years on an initial outlay of £167 - roughly a 5.7% compound return on the initial investment.

Not a great return and I'm not sure how it compares with having invested in other things over the last 30 years, but I have invested in worse!

But what this simple analysis overlooks is that it might have been possible to have bought the Fonseca 1977 in the mid-80s for something less than £167 per dozen.

However, I shall wait for the pricing indications with eagerness and will almost certainly buy some port on release and top up in years to come.

if you had bought the fonseca 80s tho instead of said 77s. you would have been drowning your sorrows in the f80s instead of patting your back about the wonderful pick up in the f77s =)

[uncle tom]

Assuming that at auction with good provenance you would pay roughly 20% less or £1,056.

Current auction price, including BP, is only around £55 - £60 btl (typically £600 + BP for a case); quite a modest return for 30yrs storage and capital tie-up.

Tom

[Roy Hersh]

What is palate fatigue?

Is that similar to when you don't get enough sleep the night before and your palate is tired the next morning? Or do you refer to the dozen young samples you tried and by around VP #8 you are wondering if you are standing in the UK or US?

[jdaw1]

What is palate fatigue?

That after several wines each seems increasingly like a blend of what went before.

Roy: in some previous thread you were telling us that there’s a secret about the 2007 declaration and that, of course, you couldn’t tell us. What was the secret?

[Glenn E.]

Roy: in some previous thread you were telling us that there’s a secret about the 2007 declaration and that, of course, you couldn’t tell us. What was the secret?

Piecing together everything that has come since, my guess is that the secret was Vargellas Capella.

[jdaw1]

Vargellas Capella.

My guess would have been similar.