Taylors Scion

[mosesbotbol]

More houses should bottle pipe specific colheitas. It gives some meaning to the contents when the consumer can knows it was from a specific barrel. Consumers love it when it comes to whiskey.

[uncle tom]

More houses should bottle pipe specific colheitas. It gives some meaning to the contents when the consumer can knows it was from a specific barrel. Consumers love it when it comes to whiskey

I've been saying that for years..

..but spare us the poncy boxes and mega bucks price tags..

Tom

[g-man]

The story would be even better if they had found a lost barrel somewhere in the cellars of the Taylor's lodge.

I agree. But this got me thinking... if they had found a lost barrel somewhere in the cellar of the lodge, how much Port would actually be left in it after 155 years?

Even assuming a relatively small (and modern) Angel's share of just 1%, a 155-year old pipe would contain just under 116 liters. At an Angel's share of 3% it would contain just under 4.9 liters.

Food for thought when it comes to these old Ports!

is that assuming that it was buried deep damn in a damp cellar where the pressure and humidity might have kept the angel from finding their share?

[jdaw1]

is that assuming that it was buried deep damn in a damp cellar where the pressure and humidity might have kept the angel from finding their share?

A cellar 500m deep would have an air pressure less than 10% higher. Pressure is unlikely to be relevant.

[g-man]

is that assuming that it was buried deep damn in a damp cellar where the pressure and humidity might have kept the angel from finding their share?

A cellar 500m deep would have an air pressure less than 10% higher. Pressure is unlikely to be relevant.

but <~10% over 150 years surely has some affect.

[jdaw1]

Most of the the cellars of small Quintas are less than ½km deep. Typically, much much less.

[JacobH]

More houses should bottle pipe specific colheitas. It gives some meaning to the contents when the consumer can knows it was from a specific barrel. Consumers love it when it comes to whiskey.

I imagine economics come into place, as they do with Scotch: a 550 litre pipe is only 685 or so bottles of port, which is tiny, even by the standards of the independents.

I imagine the only way to make economical would be to follow the Scotch model and have an independent organisation buy and sell single-pipe versions (à la The Scotch Malt Whisky Society) or to do what Taylor’s is and only sell it when it can be made in to be ultra-expensive.

Even assuming a relatively small (and modern) Angel's share of just 1%, a 155-year old pipe would contain just under 116 liters. At an Angel's share of 3% it would contain just under 4.9 liters.

This is also assuming that these were standard-sized pipes. If they were larger, evaporation could be less of a problem (and the wine might be more likely to be drinkable at such an age.

[DRT]

is that assuming that it was buried deep damn in a damp cellar where the pressure and humidity might have kept the angel from finding their share?

A cellar 500m deep would have an air pressure less than 10% higher. Pressure is unlikely to be relevant.

It should be remembered that this wine spent 155 years in a cask in the Corgo valley, not in VNG. I would think that the angels who live in the Douro are treated to a very much larger share than those on the west coast.

Reading the press release again it is stated that this wine was "maintained as a private reserve". I read somewhere else that it had been racked, presumably a number of times over its lifetime. I wonder if, how many times, and with what, the family refreshed the wine to compensate for those greedy Douro angels?

[jdaw1]

Reading the press release again it is stated that this wine was "maintained as a private reserve". I read somewhere else that it had been racked, presumably a number of times over its lifetime. I wonder if, how many times, and with what, the family refreshed the wine to compensate for those greedy Douro angels?

Imagine that, each year the angels and family drank 2½% of this reserve, and topped up that 2½% with 2YO wine. Then today this wine would have an average age of 40 years and 2 months, and 2% of the cask would have come from that starting harvest 155 years ago.

[Andy Velebil]

I wonder if, how many times, and with what, the family refreshed the wine to compensate for those greedy Douro angels?

That right there is the most important question I've read in this entire thread and an answer I'd seek out if I was looking to buy this wine.

[Glenn E.]

I read somewhere else that it had been racked, presumably a number of times over its lifetime. I wonder if, how many times, and with what, the family refreshed the wine to compensate for those greedy Douro angels?

Sarah Ahmed, the Wine Detective, mentioned that on her website along with a TN for Scion. She also mentions that it was stored in the basement of a house, not in a proper lodge, though it's possible that a basement could be as good as a lodge in a winemaker's house.

One would hope that the Port was only topped off with itself when racked. That's certainly what I infer from all of the Taylor press materials.

At a 1% rate of evaporation, that means they started with ~10 casks (referred to as pipes in some of the press) in order to end up with 2. They'd need to have started with 15 if Churchill did actually acquire a "third cask" (or possibly fewer since he'd have to have acquired it many decades ago). Still... that's a lot of Port to have been saved as a family reserve. The numbers simply aren't reasonable at a higher rate of evaporation. One could make a strong case that they're not reasonable at 1%.

[Roy Hersh]

2-4% evaporation is the average annual rate in the majority of Port lodges in Gaia. However, we know that this Scion juice came from casks found in a private cellar in the Douro. Evaporation there is typically higher than in Gaia, as the RH and temperatures are less stable, certainly back in the day. So forget even considering 1% evap rate ... even as an example, as it has no basis in reality.

[uncle tom]

One would hope that the Port was only topped off with itself when racked

This of course is the niggling bit - a lot can happen over 155 years, and I once came across a bottle of 19th century tawny that included the word 'refreshed' on the label..

- Dare they get a radio carbon date?

Tom

[jdaw1]

I once came across a bottle of 19th century tawny that included the word 'refreshed' on the label.

1896 Elviro Garcia ‘Refreshed’ tawny, which has pictures of this “Rare Lodge Port”.

[Roy Hersh]

Refreshing is a practice still in use today. There are numerous ways of topping off an old barrel, or not.

[Andy Velebil]

Refreshing is a practice still in use today. There are numerous ways of topping off an old barrel, or not.

Refreshing is a practice that almost all wineries that age wine for more than a year in barrel use, as they have to due to evaporation rates and keeping the pipes/barrels topped up. Most use the same vintage and type of wine from another barrel or in the case of many Cali wineries, large glass or plastic containers. So refreshing isn't normally a big deal at all.

However, as we learned in a past newsletter, there is no IVDP regulation of what can be used to top up a colheita pipe (obviously, I'm not talking about a non-authorized substance). It can be the same vintage, or it can be a younger port that is used to refresh the casks. If the later, after that many decades with evaporation rates, a pipe refreshed with a younger Port each year has basically become a defacto type of Solera. And while it can still be called a Colheita, with a vintage, does this really make it truth in labeling? I'm sure this could be an interesting topic on it's own.....

[Roy Hersh]

andy wrote:

Refreshing is a practice that almost all wineries that age wine for more than a year in barrel use, as they have to due to evaporation rates and keeping the pipes/barrels topped up. Most use the same vintage and type of wine from another barrel or in the case of many Cali wineries, large glass or plastic containers. So refreshing isn't normally a big deal at all.

You may consider this comment as a matter of semantics, but I see it differently.

To me, topping off means the process of using the same Port whenever possible, to replace what has evaporated in a Tawny or Colheita. There's a difference between those two as one is a blend and one is not, but that's not what I am getting at.

"Refreshing" is different than topping off, although it can be construed as a similar process. However, to me the difference is that refreshing does NOT use the same Port as in the cask it is being used to top off. "Refreshing" is used to top off a wooden cask (Port or Madeira actually) with a younger batch of Port -- intentionally, which enlivens the color at least slightly, adds a youthful vibrancy from fresh acidity in the younger Port being added and provides a more profound change to the flavor profile of an older, concentrated cask of Port.

[Andy Velebil]

You may consider this comment as a matter of semantics....

I do, as the terms often are co-mingled in the wine making world when doing the same activity. But regardless, that is why I explained it the way I did in my last post.

[uncle tom]

Semantics aside; considering how pale vintage ports become after a century and half, with the certain knowledge that no refreshment has occurred since they were bottled; is it really credible that a wine that had spent that long in cask, without the periodic addition of younger wine to refresh it, would have retained such a colour as this one?

Tom

[RAYC]

Richard Mayson has his TN on this up - pity I did not realise before as could have asked for further impressions at the Noval/Nacional tasting.

http://www.richardmayson.com/Port_Notes/

[angeleyes]

Returning to Derek's point (if I may), the point of this is the romantic story behind the wine, and the packaging. Those with that kind of cash will view it as a rather nice display item or gift, and drink it by tasting the imagination that goes with 150+ years of age, rather than by the wine alone.

[Andy Velebil]

Ray,

Thanks...here is some background from Maysons site.

...a one-off bottling of a pre-phylloxera Port dating back to the mid–nineteenth century, probably 1855. It comes from a quinta belonging to the late Irene Viana Pinto in the village of Prezegueda in the Corgo valley near Régua.

part of his tasting note

leaving an aftertaste of Elvas plums.

Of the very old colheita's and tawny's I've had, I can't say I've ever run across a plum aftertaste in any of them.

[uncle tom]

Of the very old colheita's and tawny's I've had, I can't say I've ever run across a plum aftertaste in any of them.

Ditto.. Fruit flavours are usually the first casualty to age..

Tom

[Glenn E.]

Of the very old colheita's and tawny's I've had, I can't say I've ever run across a plum aftertaste in any of them.

I often get my fruits confused, but I have noted dates and figs in old Colheitas before. I can't be sure about plums, but it at least seems possible to me.

The killer for me is the number of casks that they'd have needed at the start in order to end up with 2 left at the end. (We'll assume that the Winston Churchill rumor is just that... a rumor.) Roy says 1% evaporation in the Douro has no basis in reality and I believe him, so figuring it for 2% they'd have needed ~46 casks of this wine back in 1855. That's not a family reserve, that's a production run.

So we're forced to conclude that this is a Solera. There's nothing wrong with Soleras, but I do have a problem with them referring to a Solera being a pre-phyloxera Port because that's just not true. The odds seem very high that less than 10% of this Port actually remains from 1855 if it is a Solera, which means that most of it is actually post-phyloxera Port added to "refresh" the casks over the years.

[DRT]

Does anyone know how many bottles are being released?

I think we need to be careful not to interpret the "2 casks" as necessarily being "2 pipes". I have seen lots of casks of different sizes used for private reserves in the Douro. This may have started off as a small or large Tonel containing many thousands of gallons and after multiple rackings, evaporation and drinking, ended up in two small casks containing only a few gallons each. The fact of the matter is we don't know.

An injection of facts would be a good thing at this point in the discussion.