ThePortForum.com

Been a while since I was around due to personal circumstance but hey ho.

My cousin has, amongst many others, a pair of 1916 VPs. Labels have been missing many years but they have been laid down along with the others in a constant temperature so they shouldn't be awfully bad. He doesn't know if they have been recorked and I think he's had them at least 25 years.

After a discussion earlier this week, he's suggested that he may never open them as they are possibly going to be only useful for sprinkling on chips. My take is that they won't get better and the worst that can happen is that they are useless.

Anyone have any specific viewpoints either on why he should open them, chances of them being a waste of time or even why he should never open them? I'd be tempted to get him over to a blind tasting (since the only way to find out what they are is to pull the cork that means we'll struggle on either a horizontal or a vertical evening!) but he prefers to sup at home which is in the DRT area where they have neither electricity nor running water.

Evidence for 1916 declarations is rather thin, other than Christopher’s ‘Victory’ bottling.

• From the Xmas 1930 catalogue of Christopher & Co.
• But King’s College Cambridge stock of wine as of 9 December 1921 lists ‟Victory (supplied by Christopher) 1916 bot 1919”. Note different bottling date, probably coming from a different batch.

• Brooks’s club, according to a stock list dated 1932, owned 72 bottles of ‟Victory 1916”, supplied by Christopher. Bottling date unspecified.

Zelandakh wrote:he prefers to sup at home which is in the DRT area where they have neither electricity nor running water.

I am happy to mount the donkey and trudge over the hills to evaluate these useless assets.

I would be willing to suffer from the nose-bleed necessary to travel to the north of England in order to witness DRT tasting some 1916 port. I would even bring something suitable for him and your cousin to rinse their mouths out after the hardship of sipping 1916 vintage port.

As you say Nick, the contents of the bottles could be nothing more than chip sprinkling fodder but is more likely to be a delicate and pleasant sugar-water. However, the unusual vintage would make this a great opportunity if your cousin was willing to consider joining an offline that we would be willing to arrange close to where he is based. We have organised a couple of offlines in the Peak District in the past and would be happy to do something similar again in the future.

I hadn't in fact thought of that. I will suggest it and let you know if he is interested. I fully expect them only to be fit to pour on my chips.

For anyone feeling disgruntled over any comments on the grim and frozen north, I should point out that all of my family come from and all live (with the exception of my brother who some of you have met at the NYC offline) in Yorkshire. My apologies for not pointing that out earlier.

I would bring the chips