Large bottle sizes: a campaign

[jdaw1]

FYI, Roy Hersh’s most recent FTLOP newsletter, December 2014, #83, is available free to all, subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Pages 4 to 11 hold an essay Roy commissioned from me, entitled ‘Big Bottles: Ending the Prohibition’. Enjoy.

[djewesbury]

Very pleased to see this listed in the email bulletin, and looking forward to reading it.

[differentdave]

Congrats Julian, downloaded his newsletter without reading this thread, was pleased and not surprised to see your name in his newsletter. Neing the receipent of multiple 6 l, 3l and 1.5l of 2011 vintage port I owe you a big THANK you. so thank YOU. Conratulations again!

[jdaw1]

Happily I take credit for the 6 litre imperials: thank you for the acknowledgement.

[jdaw1]

Large bottles: ancient precedent

Auction by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods on 12 April 1937, “of Rare Wines & Liqueurs, Generously presented for Sale for the Benefit of The Funds of Queen Charlotte’s Hospital”.



(Reproduced by kind permission of Christie’s; my picture #22590)

[jdaw1]

Large bottles: ancient precedent

Auction by Messrs. W. & T. Restell, and Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, on 16 October 1941, being the Red Cross Sale.

(Reproduced by kind permission of Christie’s; my picture #22836.)

[DRT]

Happily I take credit for the 6 litre imperials: thank you for the acknowledgement.

The spoils of war

[differentdave]

did you open the bottle this past weekend? If so how did it show?

[djewesbury]

See here.

[jdaw1]

There has been a legal and a cultural change about big bottles of Port. Last December Roy suggested that the origin of this change appear in his FTLOP newsletter #83, December 2014, with an agreed exclusivity of 30 days. It was an excellent suggestion of Roy’s.

The essay now appears at www.jdawiseman.com/papers/port_and_wine ... ition.html. It is substantially the same essay as that in Roy’s newsletter, plus some data from Niepoort (alas ✔s rather than numbers). Also it quotes the whole of the first letter to the IVDP, English and Portuguese, and includes some other minor extras. But it is substantially the same essay: if you read the version in the FTLOP newsletter, it’s not worth the effort of re-reading.

Request to Port houses: please do send more data for the table in the essay’s postscript, even for vintages long post-dating the essay.

[DRT]

Request to Port houses: please do send more data for the table in the essay’s postscript, even for vintages long post-dating the essay.

The IVDP post annual statistics relating to the production, export and price of Port. Perhaps you could ask them to also publish statistics showing how much is bottled in each format?

[jdaw1]

So what is the difference between 1(a) and 1(d)? The article I read didn't explain it, and I was curious while reading, and still want to know.

You asked.

2. Next we come to a more technical reading of the details of the rules.

Wine is divided into various types by 75/106/EEC (as amended), of which port, being a non-sparkling non-French wine made from fermented grape, can only fall into 1.(a) or 1.(d). But which?

• [1.] (d) Vermouths and other wines of fresh grapes flavoured with aromatic extracts (CCT heading No 22.06); liqueur wines (CCT subheading ex 22.05 C)

Port clearly isn’t a Vermouth as it isn’t “flavoured with aromatic extracts”, so port falls into 1.(d) only if it lies within Common Customs Tariff paragraph 22.05. This has three sub-paragraphs, (a), (b), and (c), and port does not fall into any of those three, as I now describe.

• [22.05] (a) grape must with fermentation arrested by the addition of alcohol, that is to say, a product:
  
  • having an actual alcoholic strength by volume of not less than 12 % vol but less than 15 % vol, and …
  [/i]

Neither an intermediate product, nor the final port product, has alcohol between 12% and 15%. So port doesn’t fall into 22.05 (a).

• [22.05] (b) wine fortified for distillation, that is to say, a product: …
  
  • obtained exclusively by the addition to wine containing no residual sugar …
  [/i]

The port I drink has more than “no residual sugar”, so is not 22.05 (b).

CCT 22.05 (c) is excluded from 75/106/EEC 1.(d), but fails anyway, so, even if a lettering error, doesn’t matter.

• [22.05] (c) liqueur wine, that is to say, a product: …
  
  • obtained from grape must or wine, which must come from vine varieties approved in the third country of origin for the production of liqueur wine and have a minimum natural alcoholic strength by volume of 12 % vol, …
    • by the addition during or after fermentation:
      • of a product derived from the distillation of wine, or …
  However, certain quality liqueur wines appearing on a list to be adopted may be obtained from unfermented fresh grape must which does not need to have a minimum natural alcoholic strength by volume of 12 % vol.[/i]

The wine to which the alcohol is added does not “have a minimum natural alcoholic strength by volume of 12 % vol” (see definition in Additional notes: ‘natural alcoholic strength by volume’ means the total alcoholic strength by volume of a product before any enrichment). And the “third country” part is puzzling: this might be describing something horrible made from imported grapes, like British Sherry. Even the last clause of 22.05 (c) fails to be port, as the alcohol is not added to something “unfermented”.

Just for emphasis, CCT 22.08 makes very clear that 22.05 isn’t port:

• [22.08] Only vermouth and other wine of fresh grapes flavoured with plants or aromatic substances having an actual alcoholic strength by volume of not less than 7 % vol shall be regarded as products of heading 2205.

No flavouring with “plants”? No flavouring with “aromatic substances”? Not the ports I drink. Hence, in the Common Customs Tariff, port really isn’t 22.05. Hence in 75/106/EEC port is not 1.(d); port is 1.(a). Hence EU rules allow port to be bottled 0.10L, 0.25L, 0.375L, 0.50L, 0.75L, 1L, 1.5L, 2L, 3L, 5L, 6L, 9L, 10L, 0.187L, 4L, and 8L (in the order given in 75/106/EEC (as amended)).

Please, the IVDP should explicitly and clearly permit all these sizes, for new bottlings and for old.

Hence my judgement that most of Roy’s readers just wouldn’t be interested. (Including me.)

Let’s re-phrase. There is no meaning to 1.(a), nor to 1.(d). They are not religious doctrines, giving purpose to the lives of the lost. Instead both are bureaucratic definitions referencing other bureaucratic definitions. That’s all. Which is why I thought that the newsletter would be less turgidly unreadable without them.

[jdaw1]

Some posts moved by jdaw1 to Tapatalk 2 with TPF & iPhone.

[Chris Doty]

I don't know how it is possible that I could have been so fabulously unaware of the IVDP's curious stance on bottle formats, nor of Jdaw's heroic/historic campaign to restore sanity, pride, equality, and ballerdom to Portugal.

To save you chaps any suspense, size matters. And although I consider a 375ml of port to be possibly the most romantic bottle of wine, for straight pimping, for hardcore 'honeybadger doesn't give a ....' - it's go big or go home. I treasure all of my imperials, and now have even more reason to look upon them with awe.

Sincerest thanks Julian. I had already considered you to be among the most likely beneficiaries of my growing Methusulah collection, and now I have an even greater incentive to celebrate your company with these bottles. I do not see the 'bow' emoticon on the right, but were it available, it would go :here: in its absence, I will leave you with

From Mumbai with affection,

CSD

ps - returning to London on the 14th of Feb. I have no known commitments on the 15th, and will likely spend the day merrily. while not an 'emergency', I would be most welcoming of company! woo woo

[jdaw1]

equality

I did not campaign for equality. I want there to be both double-magnums and imperials, and former had better know that they are junior to the latter.

To save you chaps any suspense, size matters. And although I consider a 375ml of port to be possibly the most romantic bottle of wine, for straight pimping, for hardcore 'honeybadger doesn't give a ....' - it's go big or go home. I treasure all of my imperials, and now have even more reason to look upon them with awe.

Ahh, we differ. I enjoy being Big At Home.

returning to London on the 14th of Feb. I have no known commitments on the 15th, and will likely spend the day merrily. while not an 'emergency', I would be most welcoming of company! woo woo

Sunday 15^th February 2015: I could do lunch. Rather than disrupting the big-bottle discussion, please start a thread.

Edit: CSD started Invitation to Lunch: February 15th.

[Chris Doty]

equality

I did not campaign for equality. I want there to be both double-magnums and imperials, and former had better know that they are junior to the latter.

perhaps I should have specified that I meant Portuguese wine makers should have the same bottling freedoms as their counterparts in France, Italy, etc. Obviously, bigger = better.

To save you chaps any suspense, size matters. And although I consider a 375ml of port to be possibly the most romantic bottle of wine, for straight pimping, for hardcore 'honeybadger doesn't give a ....' - it's go big or go home. I treasure all of my imperials, and now have even more reason to look upon them with awe.

Ahh, we differ. I enjoy being Big At Home.

wake the kids?

returning to London on the 14th of Feb. I have no known commitments on the 15th, and will likely spend the day merrily. while not an 'emergency', I would be most welcoming of company! woo woo

Sunday 15^th February 2015: I could do lunch. Rather than disrupting the big-bottle discussion, please start a thread.

Fabulous.

[jdaw1]

FYI.

Request re Jorge Nicolau da Costa Monteiro

Roy,

Please allow a request about a subsequent newsletter.

The Big-Bottle essay explained that the then president of the IVDP, Jorge Nicolau da Costa Monteiro, did not allow big bottles. His term ended at the IVDP; his successor did allow big bottles; that new policy seems to have been a success.

This could be interpreted, not wrongly, as a criticism of Jorge Nicolau da Costa Monteiro.

Please allow a reply to this criticism. Please consider inviting JNdCM to write a response. He might well refuse: even so, offering would be the correct thing to do.

— JDAW.

[Chris Doty]

The search function on ivdp.pt doesn’t find it. Please, would somebody concurring with JM’s sentence post a direct link.

http://www.ivdp.pt/pt/docs/legislacao/228.pdf

My Portuguese is rubbish, but I think that's it (?)

[jdaw1]

The search function on ivdp.pt doesn’t find it. Please, would somebody concurring with JM’s sentence post a direct link.

http://www.ivdp.pt/pt/docs/legislacao/228.pdf

Thank you for answering my question of 5¾ years ago.



Five posts moved by jdaw1 to Bureaucracy and speed.

[jdaw1]

Some campaigns are successful. Others fail utterly.

[jdaw1]

The back label of an imperial of Quevedo Quinta Vale D’Agodinho 2013:

[DRT]

Nice to see Oscar continuing that now ancient tradition.