ThePortForum.com

Posted this on FTLOP as well....Was just looking at the Croft Website and they seem to have several Ruby Reserves (All are called "Finest Reserve"):

1. Distinction
2. Purple Velvet
3. Extravagance
4. Indulgence
5. Platinum

Yet there are few notes here. Interesting that they would market five Reserve Rubies when most other producers have one (Fonseca has a couple). Has anyone tried them all or know more about these?

http://www.croftport.com/en/catalogue/platinum/port/

..and lastly...Croft Triple Crown...seems like a regular ruby

Warre and Dow also seem to have similar multiple brands for what essentially seems to be one product.

Presumably it is a marketing thing rather than a mark of wines of materially different character.

Whatever it is the complete lack of response on this topic means to me Croft has not marketed these products at all....after all we are Port Fanatics.

If two different supermarkets both sell ‘Purple Velvet’, customers can compare prices. Competition—who wants that? If one supermarket sells ‘Purple Velvet’, and the other sells ‘Indulgence’, prices cannot be compared. But the two bottles might—and might not—hold the same juice.

Also see What's the point in all the rubies?, started in May 2009.

DRT wrote:Warre and Dow also seem to have similar multiple brands for what essentially seems to be one product.

Presumably it is a marketing thing rather than a mark of wines of materially different character.

+1
Lots of wine producers of all types of wine have different names for the same product going to different markets (countries).

I'm sure I remember having a bottle of Croft Platinum reserve but I can't find a tasting note for it anywhere. I guess I must have given the bottle away.

I don't recall ever trying any of the Croft rubies. I don't think they featured in our ruby taste-off a couple of years ago.

AHB wrote:our ruby taste-off a couple of years ago.

Thu 29th March at The Bunghole - The Birthday Boys.