How to turn around Port sales into the black again?

[Andrew E]

Being a newbie in the port world, it's price that's killing me. This past decade has had "good" harvests and highly rated vintages. So buying brand new bottles of VP at $40-$100 that aren't going to have the taste profile I prefer for at least 20-30 years (the time variable - they might get corked, a power outage causing them to overheat and get ruined, etc) isn't going to make me want to run out and drop my cash. Their are old VP's already in existence, but $200 a bottle isn't any easier than $40-$100, lol.

Tawny is the easiest to handle, but the value proposition changes a ton past a 20 year old, heck even within the 20 year old range. It's hard to find a great value for the money tawny for $40-$50. Some 20 year old tanwies flirt with 30 year old prices.

Sounds like you're shopping at the wrong stores!

It's pretty easy to find 1980-1985 VPs in the $80-$100 range. No, they're not as mature as a 1970, but many of them are "early mature" and even some that aren't are still drinking very well already. None of those vintages is as good as 1970... but then again you're not paying 1970 prices either.

In the 20-yr old tawny range... there are great ones available in the $40-$50 range! And if you go just a little higher (around $55 usually) you can get some of the finest 20-yr old tawnies available. It's really tough to beat the QPR of a 20-yr old... you just have to know what you like and find the producer who makes it. I've seen Sandeman right around $40, and that's one of the best 20-yr olds available (though not a style I prefer). I've seen Fonseca and Taylor around $45. Porto Rocha is good and routinely in the $48-$50 range. But even Ferreira's Duque de Braganca can be found online in the $55 range, and my personal favorite Ramos Pinto is usually in the $50-$55 range.

At retail, an 30-yr old will normally be closer to $80-$90. A 40-yr old will typically be $120 or more. (Up to $140 for Kopke sometimes.) So the 20-yr olds are still great values, and you can splurge once in a while for a 30- or 40-yr old.

The great thing for us as consumers is that tawnies are even sturdier than VPs, so buying over the internet is just about as foolproof as it can get. No fear involved - look for what you want on WineSearcher.com and order away. Sure, you'll have to pay for shipping, but you probably won't have to pay sales tax so it works out in the end.

I think this is where being new to the port world bites me in the behind again, lol.
Sure a 20 year tawny can be great for the price, but I haven't tried nearly enough of them to know which ones I like, haha. That means going through more than one $40-50 bottle to find where my tastes lie. The Otima 20 Roy likes to mention was a welcome low cost revelation. I've tried Sandeman (at a restaurant... ) and while it was better than any 10 I've had so far, it wasn't my style to continue forking $40 out for it. My other biggest hurdle is Everett, WA , haha. It's all rubies and basic tawny ports up here. I have considered going online but just haven't yet.

[Roy Hersh]

Andrew,

Buying Port in Washington State is a losing battle. The taxes paid are ridiculous for wine ("sin tax") makes it unthinkable for me. I've lived here since 1996 and I bet I haven't purchased 20 bottles of Port here in WA in those 15 years. You really need to broaden your purchasing horizons if you want to increase the size of your Port holdings. Get with the program, pay $29 a year for the winesearcher.com PRO version and you will find the least expensive prices on any wine you'd like, located anywhere in the world.

But this is not a Port buying thread ... it is about how to turn around the sales of Port into the black.

[John M.]

While many things here said are valid, I think we're missing the bigger picture. The port trade needs more Port Lovers and to create demand--the supply, even excess supply, is there already. The best way to do that is to make drinking port in vogue. Think of what happened to cigars, they became trendy and a whole culture was born around cigars. 30 years ago, there were barely any tobacco shops, then in the 90s they were everywhere and celebrities were on magazine covers smoking cigars. Same thing with martinis. The port trade needs to do something similar to make drinking port "more cool"--I said earlier in this topic product placement in movies and celebrity exposure would go a great way to making port hip...and that includes women who seem to generally shy away from drinking port.

Lastly, the Asian market is basically untapped as well.

[Tom D.]

At a recent tasting event, I was interested to hear Robert Bower of TFP mention that the Far East has indeed discovered Port. I did not have time to probe further on the topic, but if true it may be good news for producers but seems likely to make those hard-to-find older vintages even harder to find for the rest of us...

[Markus L.]

In my humble opinion, port industry's problem is that most people don't really know what port is. If you ask a random passerby what port wine is, what is the chance that the answer is anything else than a variation of "red and sweet dessert wine", which is far from the whole truth? If you give random passersby a glass of tawny without telling what it is, how many of them will guess it's port?

Having a hobby of wine tasting is popular and trendy, but if you tell you're into port, you'll be held as an eccentric.

[Brian C.]

I wonder if a real obstacle here is the control wielded at the wholesale distributor level. If retailers can only choose from the wholesalers' inventories, that would be a problem. If I wanted to open up a shop and wanted to have a robust dessert wine section, am I not at the whim of what the distributors have available? If retailers are relegated to merely trying to scalp distributor inventory and not able to seek wines beyond those inventories, how can one expect there to be a dynamic plan in place for any of the wines that lie outside of mainstream consumption, let alone port? (Those of you more knowledgeable about distribution and retail, please feel free to correct wherever I have misspoken.)

As for Costco, they sell a lot of Graham's 20 year here, and I did find that bottle of 2007 Vesuvio VP, also, which was certainly a very pleasant surprise. I still want to shop someday at the Costco where Moses shops...

[Paul Fountain]

I think we are probably a neglected market in Australia. I'd imagine that most of the Port companies would feel that the market isn't big enough to warrant any investment or promotion. That coupled with competition from local fortifieds makes it a relatively unappealing market for investing in. If they were to take on the challenge, the first things that need to be looked at are education and promotion. The vast majority of Australians wouldn't have ever tried a portuguese port of any type or quality. Many don't even realise that the port is derived from Porto. Many have also had bad experiences or associations with bad Australian fortifieds in the past with "port" on the label, but not resembling it in the slightest.
The way to do this is to get involved in the many food and wine festivals and shows that are put on around the country. Idealy the Douro winemakers as a group, or Portuguese industry as a whole should be pushing the region as a brand. They need to show what the region can do and what they can do that noone else can. A few personal appearances by winemakers or company execs would generate some mainstream press as well and that helps to get the word out there.
We also have a problem with pricing in Australia. At current prices, there is no way that Joe Public would purchase something just to try it out. The gaps seem to be most wide at the bottom end of the market. When I'm paying the same price for an LBV or 10 year old Tawny that I would be for a Muscat with an average age of 50 years we have a problem. If they are going to do it now is the time. Spanish food and wine is big in Australia right now and some of the portuguese table wines have been able to ride on their coat tails. Also with the changes in the labeling laws that prevent the use of port on the local labels the time is right for some education.

[Andrew E]

Andrew,

Buying Port in Washington State is a losing battle. The taxes paid are ridiculous for wine ("sin tax") makes it unthinkable for me. I've lived here since 1996 and I bet I haven't purchased 20 bottles of Port here in WA in those 15 years. You really need to broaden your purchasing horizons if you want to increase the size of your Port holdings. Get with the program, pay $29 a year for the winesearcher.com PRO version and you will find the least expensive prices on any wine you'd like, located anywhere in the world.

But this is not a Port buying thread ... it is about how to turn around the sales of Port into the black.

Well that makes a lot more sense then. I've only lived in high tax states (NY & Washington) so buying any alcohol cheap has never really been an option. I didn't realize the savings really are that high, so I'll probably give winesearcher.com a shot.

Do you have an affiliate link that people could use to sign up for it? I wouldn't mind getting FTLOP some affiliate dollars if I sign for it.

[Glenn E.]

Well that makes a lot more sense then. I've only lived in high tax states (NY & Washington) so buying any alcohol cheap has never really been an option. I didn't realize the savings really are that high, so I'll probably give winesearcher.com a shot.

Do you have an affiliate link that people could use to sign up for it? I wouldn't mind getting FTLOP some affiliate dollars if I sign for it.

The free version is pretty good, too. I have used both the free and pro versions, and I'd guesstimate that the pro version saves you (on average) another $1-2 per bottle.

The free version only shows listings from their sponsors (or members, or whatever they're called) while the pro version shows all listings that their web crawlers can find. It's at least twice as many listings in most cases, though most of them aren't all that useful because they're off the first page (read: higher prices).

Give the free version a spin - it'll give you an idea of what's out there!

[Andrew E]

A little bit back on topic:

Making port become associated with something other than "just for dessert" or "for cooking."
Why have I ever even tried champagne? Because it's what you drink whenever you celebrate!
Why have I ever tried Chianti? Aside from Silence of the Lambs, it's the go to table wine at almost every "traditional" Italian restaurant with that trademark basket-bottle.
Pinot Noir - I don't doubt everyone here knows about the magic the movie Sideways created for sales of Pinot, and the death sentence it was to sales of Merlot.


I say find some good associations - then market the hell out of them, maybe sign up Paul Giamatti, lol.


You can instantly make a market for tawny with cigars. I post on some cigar forums and you'd be surprised how many people have no idea how well a good tawny goes with a cigar. And that's if they even know that port exists. Some people even drink young VP's with cigars because they confuse it with a 10 or 20 year old tawny. I've been to a few cigar events so far and I have had two drinking choices: Any range of gasoline tasting whiskey, and because I'm in Washington a local winery. Aside from those trying to appear manly single malt scotch drinkers, you could probably have a line out the door with tawny drinkers.

I'm sure VP can easily be associated with something as well, but I'm more on the tawny side of things right now.

[jean p]

An extensive (and successful) marketing campaign would definitely do a lot for port, though I'm not completely sure I'll be happy if the prices for the new releases of VPs start climbing to the $200s.

[Andy Velebil]

... though I'm not completely sure I'll be happy if the prices for the new releases of VPs start climbing to the $200s.

No kidding!

[Tom Archer]

I'm not completely sure I'll be happy if the prices for the new releases of VPs start climbing to the $200s.

That's not the way things are going - wine auction prices are falling off a cliff in the UK now..

..last night I saw a case of Dow '63 sell for less than the release price of Dow '07..

(unfortunately I wasn't the buyer - I was sitting next to a dealer, and casually mentioned that I didn't need the lot, so left it to him - and he got it for a song! )

Tom

[Roy Hersh]

Some times you win and sometimes you lose. But at the end of the game, sometimes you win when you lose and other times you can lose when you win.

[John M.]

by Roy Hersh » Sat Nov 19, 2011 9:22 am
Some times you win and sometimes you lose. But at the end of the game, sometimes you win when you lose and other times you can lose when you win.

Hey Big Fella, remember, the rose goes in front! One of my favorite movies.

[Paul_B]

Kids under 25, drink Cognac and Pink champagne because they see Rap stars drinking it in their videos. And sales are up.
But do we want that?

I think 500ml bottle would help.
I think each of us has a role to play educating those around us friends, kids, neighbours...(you know the old religion/sect approach)...
Restaurants and bars and clubs need to have cost effective options too.

The sales swing will come when a younger generation adopts it on top of the current generation. The current generation is too small in numbers to increase the sales. Expand the target market. If you have to be 40+ to buy, store and enjoy port regularly, sales will level or drop...what about the 25-35 recent grad, new job crowd?

Paul

[Andrew E]

Kids under 25, drink Cognac and Pink champagne because they see Rap stars drinking it in their videos. And sales are up.
But do we want that?

I think 500ml bottle would help.
I think each of us has a role to play educating those around us friends, kids, neighbours...(you know the old religion/sect approach)...
Restaurants and bars and clubs need to have cost effective options too.

The sales swing will come when a younger generation adopts it on top of the current generation. The current generation is too small in numbers to increase the sales. Expand the target market. If you have to be 40+ to buy, store and enjoy port regularly, sales will level or drop...what about the 25-35 recent grad, new job crowd?

Paul

I think this is an occasion where the industry could control the message. Wine in general lends itself to being highly relatable to life/aging/maturity/etc. and creating something respectable wouldn't be too hard at all. I mean, we already have someone making actual documentaries such as Life on the Douro, it'd be cool if the next step was a dramatized movie called "Tales from the Douro..." to be next. I could picture it with a fictionalized, or partially fictionalized life story (maybe from someone in the industry) with a port theme being really easy.

[Andrew E]

Give me a movie with someone who can talk about the culture and passion like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmkr9NND ... ded#t=186s

And there's your movie, lol. I'm not talking some cookie cutter story, but someone who can translate the feeling to film.

[Roy Hersh]

There is a reason that I am going around with Zev when he shows this film. I make not a penny from this, sell nothing, and pay for all of my own travel/hotels/meals. I am far from a rich guy and don't have this money to spend frivolously traveling around to be part of his entourage.

I have a very deep if not profound belief that his film is important and is vital for the Douro as well as both Port & DOC wine ... the first that I know of in English which provides deep insights from about 2 dozen of the top names in the Port trade, from tiny, medium and huge Port companies. The passion it translates, the imagery (some I am not 100% in agreement with, but he's the artist and it makes for fun discussions) of the Douro is remarkable, the many facets of the history, what it was like growing up there, playing there as kids, harvest, what is grafting and pruning and treading and crushing ... on and on. This may never be for the mainstream audiences, but for those like us who have a passion for Port ... this is a MUST SEE film.

I am hopeful, that the Port and Douro trade will embrace this film and support his efforts and help spread the word, show it at their tasting rooms, when they do presentations for Sommeliers etc. This is a bit long at 90 minutes, but anyone reading here will be bummed when it is over!

[Moses Botbol]

How about including a DVD in case of port or an exclusive streaming link on a bottle to watch the movie?