ThePortForum.com

In another thread, Derek mentions that Berry Brothers have placed a nice little reproduction of their 1909 price list alongside their current 2009 price list. It is quite interesting to compare the two - at least from a port lover's point of view.

In 1909, port covered almost all of pages 4 and 5 out of a total of 18 pages. Of the ports listed, 3 were aged tawnies (20, 30 and 50 years), two were colheitas (1805 and 1820), there was one white port, one "fine dry" port, 5 everyday ports and 29 vintage ports ranging from 5 years of age to 28 years of age.

In 2009, port appears on page 58 out of 64 and covers the whole of the one page. There are one white port, two aged tawny ports (20 and 40 years), 3 everday ports and 15 vintage ports ranging in age from 9 to 42 years.

So, just for fun, here are the vintage ports from the two lists. I will let another statistician work out whether the prices are comparable in real terms...

1904 Croft - 15p per bottle
1904 Taylor - 15p
1904 Martinez - 15p
1904 Warre - 15p
1904 Fonseca - 15p
1900 Taylor - 18p (10p per half bottle)
1900 Warre - 15p
1900 Fonseca - 16p
1896 Taylor - 24p
1896 Warre - 24p
1896 Cockburn - 25p
1896 Smith Woodhouse 23p (12p per half bottle)
1896 Kingston's - 22p
1890 Offley - 33p
1890 Sandeman - 33p
1890 Dow - 34p
1890 Croft - 34p
1887 Martinez - 43p
1887 Offley - 44p
1887 Dow - 44p
1887 Sandeman - 45p
1884 Sandeman - 48p
1884 Martinez - 48p
1884 Cockburn - 50p
1884 Croft - 50p
1881 Croft - 55p
1881 Dow - 53p
1881 Martinez - 53p
1881 Cockburn - 63p

And from the 2009 list:
2003 Berrys Own Selection - £32 (£17 for a half bottle)
2000 Q. do Passadouro - £39
1998 Q. do Vesuvio - £40
1998 Q. da Senhora da Ribeira - £28
1997 Smith Woodhouse - £31
1994 Warre - £51
1994 Graham - £59
1985 Dow - £62
1985 Fonseca - £78
1985 Graham - £69
1985 Warre - £59
1983 Graham - £70
1977 Dow - £89
1977 Warre - £78
1967 Cockburn - £70

http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

1£ in 1909 looks like it was worth £74.70 using the retail price index

so the 1904 croft at 10p would be worth - £4.67 using the retail price index

Alex: are those old pennies (which should have been written ‟d”)?

Non-Brits: £1 = 240d = 100p.

Note the relative difference betwen the prices of the 1904 and the 1884 ports - a factor of approximately 3.4.

Yet if you make comparisons between 2003 and 1983 using wine-searcher, you find the price difference is around 1.2.

You could argue that the 2003's are much better than 1983's, and some shippers certainly seem to have produced a better offering in 2003. However, if you compare Fonseca 1985 with Fonseca 2003 - both very sound wines - you find the price is almost identical.

So what is a fair differential?

The risks involved in wine investment may not be as great as those of the stock market, but they are certainly greater than government stock.
Capital tied up in a such an investment should (in real terms) be reasonably expected to double over a twenty year period. Storage and insurance costs meanwhile, even at wholesale rates, are likely to roll up to an expense of £50 over that period, in today's money.

This would imply that if a case of 1983 Graham has an auction value of £320 today, a case of the 2003 should only be worth about £135...

Tom

uncle tom wrote:Note the relative difference betwen the prices of the 1904 and the 1884 ports - a factor of approximately 3.4.

Yet if you make comparisons between 2003 and 1983 using wine-searcher, you find the price difference is around 1.2.

You could argue that the 2003's are much better than 1983's, and some shippers certainly seem to have produced a better offering in 2003. However, if you compare Fonseca 1985 with Fonseca 2003 - both very sound wines - you find the price is almost identical.

So what is a fair differential?

The risks involved in wine investment may not be as great as those of the stock market, but they are certainly greater than government stock.
Capital tied up in a such an investment should (in real terms) be reasonably expected to double over a twenty year period. Storage and insurance costs meanwhile, even at wholesale rates, are likely to roll up to an expense of £50 over that period, in today's money.

This would imply that if a case of 1983 Graham has an auction value of £320 today, a case of the 2003 should only be worth about £135...

Tom, although the current prices for port seem not to make much sense, I wonder how much of this can be attributed to short-term over-heating of the market, rather than a long long term undervaluing of the older bottles? How did, say, in 1997 the release price of the 1994 compare with the secondary-market price for the 1977s or 75s?

The other major change between 1909 and now seems to be the greater divergence in price between shippers for the same vintage. Comparing prices, indexed against Warre and Dow for similar vintages, whilst a Taylor VP might cost 100%, 120% and 100% of a Warre in 1904, 1990 and 1896, it costs 173%, 151% and 163% of a Warre in 2003, 2000, 1997. Equally, the less expensive shippers seem to proportionally less expensive today than the were in the past: an 1887 Offley, for example, was the same cost of a Dow, whilst a 1985 bottle will now costs about 72% of the price of an 1985 Dow.

jdaw1 wrote:Alex: are those old pennies (which should have been written ‟d”)?

No, I converted to decimal currency before working out the prices.