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Do any of the people who know about this sort of thing know what the 1983 Exhibition vintage port from The Wine Society is? It is a Symington wine and presumably must be something already bottled. I have not tried it but probably will get one or two. I have never been that keen on the '83s, something of the portrait of Whistlers mother about them, but the price seems worth a punt. Not that it is a steal either.

Any thoughts?

Yes I wondered about this. It sounds like cellar clearance but I don't really understand; if it's VP it was bottled in '85 so must be some sort of Quarles Harris / Gould Campbell lot that just didn't get released.. Surely this wasn't a special blend that was marked down as 'Wine Society 2013-release VP' 28 years ago? Or am I wrong?

I assumed it is exactly as surmised, ie one of the symington stable but which one, I am not sure that I would be delighted to be paying fifty quid for Gould Campbell '83, especially if it has been recorked so it can have the wine society brand, but Graham would be nice.

LGTrotter wrote:Graham would be nice.

Yeah, sure! At that price it would be wonderful. Something tells me though...

Do you think the Syms just have lots of bottles of the type "1987 bottling from barrel 43 awaiting a name and a home" sitting around? Maybe we should ask Paul Symington, he frequents the forum sometimes.

Go on you ask him, I'm too shy.

He probably would be killed by wine society assasins if he let the secret slip though.

djewesbury, in a PM to Paul Symington, wrote:Hello Paul,

There was a thread started this evening regarding the above new release. We wondered what it comprises; it seemed unusual to us for a bottling like this to come out without more specific notes as to its background. This is highly impertinent and irregular, I'm sure, but if you feel like it, would you mind telling us something about this port? It intrigues us.

All the best, hope the harvest hasn't been a washout..

Daniel Jewesbury

Done.

djewesbury wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:Graham would be nice.

Yeah, sure! At that price it would be wonderful. Something tells me though...

From 1983 it pretty much doesn't matter. Any of the Symington Ports will be good ones, though yes Graham would be superb.

Glenn E. wrote:From 1983 it pretty much doesn't matter. Any of the Symington Ports will be good ones

Perhaps not Cockburn

djewesbury wrote:

djewesbury, in a PM to Paul Symington, wrote:Hello Paul,

There was a thread started this evening regarding the above new release. We wondered what it comprises; it seemed unusual to us for a bottling like this to come out without more specific notes as to its background. This is highly impertinent and irregular, I'm sure, but if you feel like it, would you mind telling us something about this port? It intrigues us.

All the best, hope the harvest hasn't been a washout..

Daniel Jewesbury

Done.

Good work! I need not say that I am on tenterhooks.

Glenn E. wrote:

djewesbury wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:Graham would be nice.

Yeah, sure! At that price it would be wonderful. Something tells me though...

From 1983 it pretty much doesn't matter. Any of the Symington Ports will be good ones, though yes Graham would be superb.

Glad to hear such a ringing endorsement of the '83s, I last drank them quite a few years ago and they seemed a bit stiff still. Not that I really thought that much about it back then.

Wine Society 1985 was, IIRC, Martinez.

DRT wrote:Perhaps not Cockburn

I don't see why the Cockburn shouldn't make a pretty typical bottle eventually, but I see what you are getting at.

jdaw1 wrote:Wine Society 1985 was, IIRC, Martinez.

Not a favourite of mine, liked their '82 though.

DRT wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:From 1983 it pretty much doesn't matter. Any of the Symington Ports will be good ones

Perhaps not Cockburn

You forget my superpower.

But superpowers aside, I have been very lucky with the 1983 Cockburn.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

LGTrotter wrote:

DRT wrote:Perhaps not Cockburn

I don't see why the Cockburn shouldn't make a pretty typical bottle eventually, but I see what you are getting at.

I recall Miguel Corte Real, then manager of Cockburn, attending one of our tastings and telling us that whenever he took Ck83 to a tasting he would always take three bottles and expect two to be corked. I would never buy it based on that advice and the experience of others as reported here and on FTLOP. Yes, some have been lucky, but many have not.

That's pretty definitive. Shame, I have been looking for a younger, cheaper version of the Cockburn 70.

I wonder if they would check them for VA if they were being recorked for the Wine Society. Still not very reassuring though.

LGTrotter wrote:That's pretty definitive. Shame, I have been looking for a younger, cheaper version of the Cockburn 70.

I wonder if they would check them for VA if they were being recorked for the Wine Society. Still not very reassuring though.

I would be astonished if this is Cockburn 1983 given its reputation.

As for younger versions of Ck70, if I were you I would start looking at 2007 onwards. The period from 1970 until the Symington's gained full control of the brand and wine making is extremely variable and mostly not good. There is certainly nothing I have tasted from that period that comes close to the 1970 apart from the unreleased 1977, which is fabulous.

DRT wrote:There is certainly nothing I have tasted from that period that comes close to the 1970 apart from the unreleased 1977, which is fabulous.

Suggesting a wine I cannot buy is just toying with me.

LGTrotter wrote:Suggesting a wine I cannot buy is just toying with me.

LGTrotter wrote:Suggesting a wine I cannot buy is just toying with me.

That ‘Ck77’.

jdaw1 wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:Suggesting a wine I cannot buy is just toying with me.

That ‘Ck77’.

This really isn't helping, unless the next post is to the page where they are selling the remainder of the 700 bottles of crusted '77 at a tenner a go.

I am going to get myself the least VA tainted post 1970 Cockburn I can find (the '94?) and wait for it to turn into the 1970 Just to prove DRT wrong (or pretend I didn't if it doesn't).