A question of philosophy for port collectors

[Alex Bridgeman]

When counting the number of bottles of port you have at home (or in the wine cabinet or offsite etc), should you count miniature bottles (50ml) as "a bottle". Or should these only count as fraction (1/15th perhaps) of a bottle?

If only a fraction of "a bottle", at what size does a bottle count as "a bottle" for the purposes of pointless statistics?

[benread]

Being a man with some knowledge of insurance, you are probably familiar with our similar quandry! We count both 'units' and 'income'. The former would translate well as number of bottles, the latter as volume.

So, I would suggest you need to count both the number of bottles, but also calculate the overall volume of port you have available. That way, you can introduce a whole new level of metrics to port consumption! And I am sure someone here will have a ready made spreadsheet to deal with the calculation. You could of course then introduce new variables to your future consumption calculations, estimating the average number of people wh may share a bottle with you, so allowing you to calculate how may you need of each size....

[DRT]

When counting the number of bottles that I own I define "a bottle" as "a glass container filled with Port and sealed with a cork". This gives me a meaningful statistic representing the number of corks I need to extract to get at my Port.

When calculating the amount of money I need to pay for off-site storage my supplier calculates the total volume of wine, not the number of glass containers. This provides a fair way of charging me for the space my port is taking up in their warehouse.

I think both methods work well for their intended purpose.

{I posted at the same time as Ben}

[uncle tom]

I used to consider the number of magnums, halves etc. too small to be statistically important; but in 2009, a large quantity of 5cL and 20cL bottles (all reserves or LBV) came to auction - the 20cL bottles were still being drip fed out this year... Always having an eye for a bargain, I snapped up over a thousand of these small bottles, which I find make good quaffers for plane and train journeys, and gap fillers between decanters at home. I've also sold quite a few of the 20cL bottles to local bars.

However, the aquisition skewed the numbers on the computer, so I now tally bottles - as bottles - and also bottles as 75cL (total fluid volume in cL divided by 75)

My grand total of vintage port in bottles is currently 3,976, but as 75cL it is 3,989; which is not far apart. However, for non-vintage port the bottle count is currently 1294, yet as 75cL, the number drops to just 488.

Tom

[RAYC]

However, the aquisition skewed the numbers on the computer, so I now tally bottles - as bottles - and also bottles as 75cL (total fluid volume in cL divided by 75)

My grand total of vintage port in bottles is currently 3,976, but as 75cL it is 3,989; which is not far apart. However, for non-vintage port the bottle count is currently 1294, yet as 75cL, the number drops to just 488.

Tom

Are you accounting properly for the old 70cl bottles in these calculations?

[uncle tom]

Are you accounting properly for the old 70cl bottles in these calculations?

Putting the bottle volume on the label is quite a recent development, so I assume all bottles are 75cL. Some old ones may be 70cL, but until they're opened, there's no way of knowing..

Tom

[jdaw1]

Are you accounting properly for the old 70cl bottles in these calculations?

Which might be counter-balanced by the presence of 26⅔ fl oz bottles, from the days of the two-gallon dozen.

The counter-balancing might in turn be lessened by seepage and evaporation.

[SushiNorth]

I've started picking up these small-sized bottles as novelties whenever I see them. It would be interesting if there were a component of the index for such little creations.

[PhilW]

I define "a bottle" as "a glass container filled with Port and sealed with a cork".

Noted that at future informals I shall have to ask Derek to pass the "not full glass container of Fonseca 70" rather than the bottle, since once open it clearly no longer fits your definition of "bottle". For the next informal, if I decant into a few dozen test tubes with corks, does that also mean I could count as having brought the largest number ever of 'bottles' to an informal?

[DRT]

I define "a bottle" as "a glass container filled with Port and sealed with a cork".

Noted that at future informals I shall have to ask Derek to pass the "not full glass container of Fonseca 70" rather than the bottle, since once open it clearly no longer fits your definition of "bottle"

Context dear boy, context...

When counting the number of bottles that I own!

[Michael H]

When I read the title about a question of philosophy for port collectors, I confess I had an expectation that was not confirmed by the subsequent discussions. I had thought that this would be a discussion of such questions as: (1) if a bottle of Port breaks in the woods and nobody hears it break, did it really break? (2) is there an ideal of Port independent of imperfect individual bottles of Port? (3) would Port produced in the state of nature -- prior to advancement to a civil society -- be nasty, brutish, and short? The discussion as to how to properly speak at a gathering of Port enthousiasts -- "please pass the not entirely full glass container of Fonseca 1970" -- does approach what I had expected, though.

[uncle tom]

Michael,

1) Yes

2) Yes

3) No

Tom

PS - what are you drinking? I'd like some...

[DRT]

Surely the answer to 3) is Yes?

[g-man]

Surely the answer to 3) is Yes?

depends,

would it be an african one or an european one?

[Glenn E.]

(1) if a bottle of Port breaks in the woods and nobody hears it break, did it really break?

That depends. Was it yours? Then yes, it's broken and there's no point in you going back to get it.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I can't comment on whether a bottle of port which breaks in the woods when nobody hears it really breaks, but I can say that a bottle of port that is knocked over on a concrete floor falls far more slowly than if it falls over on a nice, soft carpet!

[PhilW]

(1) if a bottle of Port breaks in the woods and nobody hears it break, did it really break?

This could be a trick question - if the glass container was not sealed with a cork, then it was not really a 'bottle' in the first place (rule of DRT) and should be discounted from the count of broken bottles of port!

[Alex Bridgeman]

But DRT's definition of a bottle excludes bottles of port I have had in the past which were sealed with a Crown Cork or with a screw cap.

[DRT]

But DRT's definition of a bottle excludes bottles of port I have had in the past which were sealed with a Crown Cork or with a screw cap.

But as these could not have been Port, they don't count anyway. And if they did, someone should have taken them into the woods and broken them.

(1) if a bottle of Port breaks in the woods and nobody hears it break, did it really break?

This could be a trick question - if the glass container was not sealed with a cork, then it was not really a 'bottle' in the first place (rule of DRT) and should be discounted from the count of broken bottles of port!

If the glass container was not sealed with a cork then it couldn't be a bottle of Port. I refer to my response to AHB above.

Question for Michael M: was the bottle that broke in the woods in a box that might or might not have contained a dead or an alive cat?

[jdaw1]

I think DRT might have mis-quoted his own definition. If I recall correctly, for DRT to consider it port at least one of the following must be true:

• The grapes were picked in 1966;
• The grapes were picked in 1970;
• It cost ≤£15 per bottle from a British supermarket.

[DRT]

I think DRT might have mis-quoted his own definition. If I recall correctly, for DRT to consider it port at least one of the following must be true:

• The grapes were picked in 1966;
• The grapes were picked in 1970;
• It cost ≤£15 per bottle from a British supermarket.

This is complete nonsense. Port can also be made from grapes grown in 1965.

[Alex Bridgeman]

But DRT's definition of a bottle excludes bottles of port I have had in the past which were sealed with a Crown Cork or with a screw cap.

But as these could not have been Port, they don't count anyway. And if they did, someone should have taken them into the woods and broken them.

I think Messers Symington may not be very happy with this definition! At least three bottles i have owned that were sealed with screw caps contained Graham's port!!

[DRT]

But DRT's definition of a bottle excludes bottles of port I have had in the past which were sealed with a Crown Cork or with a screw cap.

But as these could not have been Port, they don't count anyway. And if they did, someone should have taken them into the woods and broken them.

I think Messers Symington may not be very happy with this definition! At least three bottles i have owned that were sealed with screw caps contained Graham's port!!

Isn't that against the rules? (apart from those ridiculously small containers that are designed for in-flight use and which are specifically excluded from the definition of what constitutes "a bottle" in common usage.)

[Alex Bridgeman]

For clarity, I should add that these 3 bottles were all 75cl bottles.

[DRT]

For clarity, I should add that these 3 bottles were all 75cl bottles.

Please explain. This is very confusing.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Graham's Emperor Tawny, bottled in 1978, was bottled in glass vessels sealed with screw tops. It was most disconcerting opening a bottle of port without a corkscrew.

[DRT]

Graham's Emperor Tawny, bottled in 1978, was bottled in glass vessels sealed with screw tops. It was most disconcerting opening a bottle of port without a corkscrew.

That's it. I've heard enough of this nonsense!

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Those were not bottles so they don't count.