Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Anything to do with Port.
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JacobH
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Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by JacobH »

The last two LBVs I’ve tried—the Messias 2016 and Quevedo 2017—were at opposite ends of the quality spectrum but neither, as far as I could tell, included a bottling date on the label. I appreciate that a bottling date is only really essentially for buying colheitas and almost every producer bottles their LBV in the 5th year after harvest but I do like to check just in case they are doing something unusual (e.g. bottling it in the 4th or 6th years).

Is there a reason why they might not put the bottling date on the labels? I guess it would mean they’d have to reprint the labels if bottling over two years? I can’t immediately see another reason why they wouldn’t do it.

Of course, considering the number of old bottles of non-VP knocking around, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if all bottles had a bottling date on them, including the non-Vintage ones so you can identify just how old some of them are.
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Andy Velebil
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Andy Velebil »

I would assume it’s in case they have to do another batch at a later time or decide to hold it in tank longer than originally planned.

Many modern bottling lines laser etch a code on the glass. These often have the date/time of bottling for quality control reasons. Did these have that?
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Mike J. W. »

JacobH wrote: 10:21 Mon 19 Dec 2022 The last two LBVs I’ve tried—the Messias 2016 and Quevedo 2017—were at opposite ends of the quality spectrum but neither, as far as I could tell, included a bottling date on the label. I appreciate that a bottling date is only really essentially for buying colheitas and almost every producer bottles their LBV in the 5th year after harvest but I do like to check just in case they are doing something unusual (e.g. bottling it in the 4th or 6th years).

Is there a reason why they might not put the bottling date on the labels? I guess it would mean they’d have to reprint the labels if bottling over two years? I can’t immediately see another reason why they wouldn’t do it.

Of course, considering the number of old bottles of non-VP knocking around, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if all bottles had a bottling date on them, including the non-Vintage ones so you can identify just how old some of them are.
Pocas doesn't do this as well and I find it mildly annoying. I picked up 4 of their 2011 LBV's (which are very good btw) and I searched them stem to stern for a bottling date. All their label says is that LBV's are bottled anywhere from 4 to 6 years after the harvest. No laser etchings either, in fact, I don't recall seeing laser etching on any of my more recent year Ports.
Glenn E.
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Glenn E. »

JacobH wrote: 10:21 Mon 19 Dec 2022 I appreciate that a bottling date is only really essentially for buying colheitas and almost every producer bottles their LBV in the 5th year after harvest but I do like to check just in case they are doing something unusual (e.g. bottling it in the 4th or 6th years).
Hmm... I would have said that 4 years is the most common. It seems that producers want to get the product to market as quickly as possible. I do see a reasonable amount that was bottled after 5 years, but 6 years seems to be pretty rare.

Getting laser etching industry-wide would be great, but that's a pretty recent "innovation" and so right now it's mostly only the larger producers who have it, or the occasional smaller producer who has remodeled/updated their bottling line very recently.
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JacobH
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by JacobH »

This is all interesting. Thank you. I’ve rummaged through my wine fridge to see what LBV I have to hand and the answer is “surprisingly little”.

The new-style Churchill LBV doesn’t have a bottling date on the label but does seem to have a laser-etched date code on the bottle (as to the others from Churchill in their new packaging). It’s the first time I’ve seen that on a Port bottle. They also seem to have bottled at 5 years.

The new Quevedo bottles aren’t etched as far as I can see. In the past they did put a bottling date on: I’ve got some 2003 bottled in 2007.

The Graham 2015 LBV doesn’t have a bottling date. I’d assumed it was 2020 because it was a 200th Anniversary special but might be wrong. Interestingly, Graham used to put bottling dates on their LBV up to about 2006. The front of their bottles had the large “bin label”-style labels that they still use today. However, they didn’t include the vintage date which was on a secondary label just below. I guess that meant that they could re-use the more expensive large labels for different harvests. From old images on Google, they were bottling at about 6 years up until 2005 (which was bottled in 2010).

Niepoort puts their bottling date on which is consistently 4 years. I’m slightly surprised about this since they are one of the few shippers that bottles some of their VP (the Bioma) in the 3rd year so I thought they might have played around with longer maturation in barrels.
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Glenn E.
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Glenn E. »

Adding to Jacob's list...

2018 Quevedo bottled in 2022 (advent calendar 90ml bottle, so might be a special/limited/test release)
2011 Crasto bottled in 2015
2003 Noval bottled in 2008

None of the above are etched or otherwise have any printed date on the bottle itself.

I also have 2003 Quevedo bottled in 2007.

I had also assumed that the 2015 Graham was bottled in 2020 seeing as it talks about it being special for the 200th Anniversary right there on the label. But it doesn't specifically say it was bottled in 2020, so it is entirely possible that it was bottled in 2019 so that it could be sold in 2020 for the anniversary.
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Andy Velebil »

Glenn E. wrote:
JacobH wrote: 10:21 Mon 19 Dec 2022 I appreciate that a bottling date is only really essentially for buying colheitas and almost every producer bottles their LBV in the 5th year after harvest but I do like to check just in case they are doing something unusual (e.g. bottling it in the 4th or 6th years).
Hmm... I would have said that 4 years is the most common. It seems that producers want to get the product to market as quickly as possible. I do see a reasonable amount that was bottled after 5 years, but 6 years seems to be pretty rare.

Getting laser etching industry-wide would be great, but that's a pretty recent "innovation" and so right now it's mostly only the larger producers who have it, or the occasional smaller producer who has remodeled/updated their bottling line very recently.
Glenn,
Laser etching is not a recent innovation. Chateau Margaux has been doing it since 1989, to give a well known reference.

Looking at some bottles in my cellar Niepoort laser codes their dry wines but so far I haven’t seen it on their port or moscatel bottles, at least the ones I’ve got on hand at home right now.

SFE does not laser etch on their Cockburn’s white port but does on their upper end ports. Granted they use a ink printed code on the Cockburn’s back label instead.

No idea why use it for some but not others.
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Glenn E. »

Andy Velebil wrote: 05:58 Wed 21 Dec 2022 Laser etching is not a recent innovation. Chateau Margaux has been doing it since 1989, to give a well known reference.
I meant in the Port trade. It's very recent for Port, when you can find it at all.
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JacobH
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by JacobH »

I was thinking about this some more. I presume that, before bottling, the LBV blend is assembled and stabilised by most shippers in large tanks, at which point a hold from 4 to 5 years or 5 to 6 years before bottling might change it very much, so perhaps the bottling age isn’t important?
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Screagle »

@JacobH, is there a code on the back label perchance - something beginning with L folllowed by a string of numerics? If so please post a photo and we'll see if we can determine the exact bottling date from there...

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JacobH
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by JacobH »

On the Quevedo it says "Lote: LA-AABA" but that was too cryptic for me!
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Andy Velebil
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by Andy Velebil »

JacobH wrote:On the Quevedo it says "Lote: LA-AABA" but that was too cryptic for me!
Very cryptic until you decipher it that is. Lol. Email Oscar and ask.
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JacobH
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by JacobH »

Yes! I’m pretty sure I could find out how when most of these LBVs were bottled without too much trouble, but I’m just curious as to why many don’t seem to have the bottling date on the labels any more.
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uncle tom
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Re: Bottling dates on LBVs (& others)

Post by uncle tom »

Although the rules say 4th year after harvest as the earliest bottling date, which I would assume is Jan 1st, nothing ever seems to get to market before the second half of that year.

Niepoort is usually quick off the blocks but most of the others drag their feet - as of today, only 4 of the 75 LBVs offered by Portugal vineyards are 2018s
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
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