ThePortForum.com

The Times, on 13 February 1975, mentioned “The Port Wine Trade Association of Great Britain”. The internets know little of this. Do readers of these pages know more?

Search instead for "Port wine trade association" (with quotes) and you'll get a lot more; it appears to be a number of UK shippers banding together for marketing purposes in the mid-late 50s; from a quick google they created at least one advert (1955), a consumer survey, a mention in parliament (trying to reduce port taxes in 1958), and a 1955 vp bottling to commemorate an HRH visit to Porto, all on behalf of this group; probably a lot more, I stopped at that point.

One of the linked articles was fascinating; have a look at Branding Port: Crisis, Transformation and the Advent of Modern Brands in the Port Wine Trade (1945-1975).
The whole article is worth a good read, a mine of interesting snippets. In particular it mentions the Association, and the “Fundo de Fomento de Exportação”, apparently a fund established to aid international marketing and promotion, around the same time as the Association was formed to perform such, so could be related. The author might also be worth contacting for any further specific information, email address in the article, at Porto University.

Good find, thank you.

I wonder what the practical difference was between that and the factory house? I’d assumed it might have included bottlers as well as shippers.