An Idea.

[Conky]

What would be the thoughts on us buying some BOB for the Forum?

I'll ramble on and you can pick the holes in it. I've got some Martinez 85 which have some Wine Society Label on it. Which got me thinking. Imagine if we approached a Shipper, and asked for say 500 bottles of a decent, but not prohibitively expensive Port. We would put The Port Forums Label on it (The design of which would be fun), with obvious acknowledgement to the Port and Manufacturer. I'd be up for the Transit Van journey down to the Duoro, if Transport issues was expensive.
The idea would be to have a small stock which we would try to sell on at a slight profit. The reason for the slight profit, would be to allow bottles to be given to occasional prize winners and selected members of the Port Trade, who may assist us in the future. I'm sure you can think of other such reasons, but you get the gist.
It would need the security of members underwriting such a venture. They would have to guarentee the purchase of the outstanding stock, if say in a year or two, it had not been sold. In that respect it would be better to buy a smaller amount than 500, but I'm sure there's a minimum at which the Shipper would turn his nose up, and say its not worth it?
My thoughts on the licence aspect of selling on the internet, is that you will need a premise licence for where the booze will be stored/shipped out from, which would also require a dps (designated premise supervisor) who holds a personal licence. You will need to make sure you have completed a risk assesment of your business too. If its clearly stated it is a frivolous and lighthearted attachment to another venture(The Forum), and not a core business, it should be relatively simple.
But I cant have a business interest in my job, so thats easy for me to say.
It was suggested we could do it with the Morgans 91, if Tom would be happy with us buying a quantity off him. But I suspect we cant sell on Morgans under our Label without their permission. Would they give it? If they would be associated with a Port Forum, that would be ideal.
Another idea would be say Vesuvio 2005 which we would say was bottled in the year The Port Forum was born. Vesuvio may not wish to be associated with such a venture.

So there's a raw idea. Feel free to develop or ridicule (In a nice way)

Alan

[DRT]

Alan,

I will refrain from ridicule as it is not in my nature to do such a thing, as you well know.

I think this idea has legs but perhaps not as a commercial venture. I think it would be great if we could find a shipper who was willing to do a limited run of bottles that were intended only for purchase by the members of this forum. This would be even more likely if we could commit to doing the work ourselves.

Supposing we reach agreement with Quinta do Somebodyfamous to allow us to tip up in VNG to help out at bottling time. We could earn our keep lugging cases around, packing trucks and bringing empty bottles to the line. Our salary would be X bottles of the product (which we would pay cost for), corked, capsuled ans sealed with the IVDP label. We could then spend an evening applying the TPF 200X labels to the bottles and packing them into 12 bottle cases to be loaded into a transit van.

What would be even better is if we started this at the beginning by going over in October to tread the grapes and then turning up 2 springs later to do the bottling and packing. That way we could really believe it was our VP

Derek

[jdaw1]

1. I'd be up for the Transit Van journey down to the Duoro, if Transport issues was expensive.

   Bottle sizes above magnum can only be collected in person, according to silly rules that are almost certainly in breach of Brussels’ single-market regulations (I have suggested to one shipper that I be a test case!). Please, would you be willing to collect some large stuff for me and take it to Octavian?
2. Why bottles? If one has company a tregnum or double-magnum is much more pleasant. TPF bottling of whatever should be in at least tregs.

[RonnieRoots]

I can tell you from experience that there's a lot of paperwork involved if you're starting an import business... It's not at all easy to just order a pallet of wine and resell it. I don't know about the UK, but in the Netherlands the tax service is pretty keen on having some of your profit as well.

If you're not afraid of taking care of all regulations, VAT and duty stuff, this is a very sympathetic plan.

[mosesbotbol]

I'd be happy just keeping the port with no intentions of selling it.

[jdaw1]

…and US delivery would be a major additional headache I guess.

[ajfeather]

i would be up for taking delivery of our 'port' straight form Portugal

[g-man]

I can tell you from experience that there's a lot of paperwork involved if you're starting an import business... It's not at all easy to just order a pallet of wine and resell it. I don't know about the UK, but in the Netherlands the tax service is pretty keen on having some of your profit as well.

If you're not afraid of taking care of all regulations, VAT and duty stuff, this is a very sympathetic plan.

it's a HUGE headache for liquids because of the new anti terrorism laws in the US. I've looked into trying to import hand bags to the us from china and I came across the anti terrorism bill. Not only do you have to go through imports with customs, you have to file forms with department of homeland security because "liquid containers" are considered possible bio terrorist agents.

Then to sell it in the NY market, you need to get a liquor license which includes a 10k bond of business + a "legitimate" place of business (ie. not someone's house/apartment)

That being said, if UK laws are easier and we can put our names on some port ... I'm game

[Axel P]

Conky,

that's an outstanding idea.

Of course, as a small official dealer myself, I do respect Ronnie's argument with the paperwork involved, but as I made it through german customs and taxes, at least on the german side Im happy to support or even lead this project (as the importer) as I already do have such things as accise numbers, VAT number and so on. I received my first big shipping of Vale Meao VPs in the beginning of the year and it was quite a stony way...

I think we should not try to take exisiting wines and re-label them. I do not think that you can persuade Quinta whatsofamous to do this either with already bottled or new wines. I can not imagine e.g. Vesuvio has a big interest in bottling for us, although if we are further on and have the finances in line, I would be happy to ask a couple of guys like Christian Seely or Dominic Symington.

For the fun part, for learning something and for practical reasons I think it would be more promising to talk to guys with good wines that are not too famous and as well not too expensive. I do see this project more quality and financially-wise in the Passadouro-Region. Then picking a year and being there during the harvest and the bottling definitely will be an experience.

Conky, I think your job is do get this thing started financially. You might start an application, where everyone can post an order with cost per bottle range lets say around 30 EUR, then we have to come up with a year and a producer and then we start to ask around.

We have the Pro-Wein-Fair in Germany in March 2008 where a lot of Port-Producers are present. This definitely would be a good place to talk to guys.

keep up the spirit!

Axel

[Conky]

Thanks for your thoughts while I've been Off Line.

So would I be right in thinking the idea hasn't gone down in flames (Thanks Axel) but needs more investigation. I'd certainly commit to a few hundred pounds, for an adventure, but maybe I can explore the Business/Licence side, whilst Axel approaches smaller producers?

Remembering its an embryonic idea, and well in the future, what sort of funds may you be prepared to venture. We'll take ball-park figures at the moment, and come back for solid figures if it ever takes off. Suggestions like Magnums are all for the debating, sounds fun.
I suspect if we all (Or most) gamble a few hundred, it'll start to grow wings.

Alan

[DRT]

Alan,

I think that is an impossible question to answer without knowing what we would be buying. I think the first step is for some people to talk to the shippers they know and ask whether or not they would be interested in helping us and what the minimum volume and cost would be to make it economically viable for them. We can then see whether or not we can find enough money between us to make it happen.

Derek