What Port(s) have you purchased this week?

[Gary Richardson]

My final Port purchase of 2015:

1 x 1977 Dow's Vintage magnum
6 x 1992 Taylor Vintage half bottles

[Al B.]

Not a purchase, but I was given two bottles of port for Christmas. My wife gave me a bottle of Vesuvio 1994 ( ) and my parents in law gave me a bottle of Fonseca Terra Prima. It's a while since I've tried the Terra Prima and it will be really interesting to try it over a number of days to see if / how it evolves over the course of a week or so.

[Glenn E.]

2 x 1945 Graham's Vintage Port

One of these will extend my vertical (now 1945-2011) while the other will probably show up at a tasting some time.

Just missed out on 2 x 1870 Warre (bottled 1918). I was trying to make sure that they were legit, and while researching someone else bought them. I didn't know it was possible at the time, but I should have put them on hold while I was doing the research!

[Moses Botbol]

Picked up 6 half bottles of 1982 Kopke Colheita bottled in 2015. Wow is an understatement. That is some fine Colheita!!! Very exotic flavors of Chartreuse and mango pickle, with great acidity and long finish!

[Alan McDonald]

Quite a few, but the purpose of my post is that my son bought a supermarket own brand (Selected by Tesco) 1997 VP for £16. I have told him to buy everything he can find at that price because the label states that it is bottled by the Symingtons in V.N. de G. He said it was "surprisingly good value for the money." I thought about using an emoticon (is that the right word) but I was unsure which suited his remark best.

Without knowing which of their Ports it might be, I still feel that it has to be tremendous value for money - roughly $US23 to 24.

[B Leader]

As far as I can tell all Tesco, Asda and Waitrose port is bottled by the Symingtons. I couldn't find the info for Sainsburys or Morrisons.

[Alan McDonald]

So does that mean Symingtons are buying in Port from other people and just bottling it, in which case I may have led my son astray. Or is it actually a deal that Symingtons have with the supermarkets (as I thought it was) and the Port is also made by Symington?

[B Leader]

I would assume the latter, whilst asda states "bottled by" under Manufaturer, Waitrose specifically states "produced and bottled by" and Tesco have them listed as "producer".

[Andy Velebil]

So does that mean Symingtons are buying in Port from other people and just bottling it, in which case I may have led my son astray. Or is it actually a deal that Symingtons have with the supermarkets (as I thought it was) and the Port is also made by Symington?

Many larger producer make what are called "Buyers Own Brand" or BOB for short. They are typically either special blends for the customer or in some more rare (and more so older cases) they were simply relabeled main-brand Ports. Virtually all medium to larger producers are buying at least some finished Port or Port grapes from smaller farmers for their "commodity" Ports. That is the norm in the Douro and what keeps them affordable.

[Alan McDonald]

So we can assume that the Tesco 1997 VP is actually made by Symington, which is really all that matters. It has to be good quality. The cork is stamped only "1997 Vintage Port". I had hoped it would show a name. I knew they all bought in grapes from other landowners, but I was not aware they also bought in finished Port.

[Andy Velebil]

So we can assume that the Tesco 1997 VP is actually made by Symington, which is really all that matters. It has to be good quality. The cork is stamped only "1997 Vintage Port". I had hoped it would show a name. I knew they all bought in grapes from other landowners, but I was not aware they also bought in finished Port.

Alan,
Yes it is actually made by the Sym's. Even though producers buy finished Port, it is still just a single component of an overall blend from what is most likely a wide variety of sources and areas. That may be to keep the "House style" for their Main-label Port or to a customers BOB specification, such as if Tesco wanted a Port made in a certain style.

[Al B.]

As far as I can tell all Tesco, Asda and Waitrose port is bottled by the Symingtons. I couldn't find the info for Sainsburys or Morrisons.

Sainsbury own label ports are also produced by Symington Family Estates (SFE).

I would also echo what Andy has said. These ports will have been blended by SFE's winemaking team from the resources available to them, bottled, registered with the IVDP and then held unlabelled in the cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia. At some point the wine buyer for Tesco will have approached the major producers and asked what might be available for them to stock in a quantity of at least X,000 bottles. Various samples will have been tasted and one selected. At that point the bottles will have been labelled with the "Tesco's Finest" label and started to appear on the shelves.

The 1995 vintage appeared on the shelves briefly in 2006 and was labelled as being produced by Quarles Harris for a short time before a second tranche of labels appeared stating the port had come from SFE.

The 1994 vintage followed the 1995 onto the shelves in 2010. This was very good value for money being priced at £12 per bottle if purchased during a promotion. I presume this was not one of the top names from SFE but represented terrific value for money even if from one of the smaller or newly acquired houses. I found this to be a bit variable with my scores ranging from 80-90. At its best it is a very good port. I did wonder whether some of the variability might be down to storage by Tesco but the UK supermarkets are pretty good at managing their supply chains so it probably isn't caused by this.

I've seen the 1997 on the shelves but haven't tried one yet. I would expect it to be a good quality vintage port just coming into its drinking window now - the 1997s seem to be maturing early.

£16 per bottle seems a very good price for a bottle of 1997 vintage port from one of the top producers.

[Bradley Bogdan]

6x 2012 Fonseca Guimarens in halves

Now to just keep the hands off them for a few years while they unwind a bit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalkz. U

[Bert VD]

As far as I can tell all Tesco, Asda and Waitrose port is bottled by the Symingtons. I couldn't find the info for Sainsburys or Morrisons.

Sainsbury own label ports are also produced by Symington Family Estates (SFE).

I would also echo what Andy has said. These ports will have been blended by SFE's winemaking team from the resources available to them, bottled, registered with the IVDP and then held unlabelled in the cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia. At some point the wine buyer for Tesco will have approached the major producers and asked what might be available for them to stock in a quantity of at least X,000 bottles. Various samples will have been tasted and one selected. At that point the bottles will have been labelled with the "Tesco's Finest" label and started to appear on the shelves.

The 1995 vintage appeared on the shelves briefly in 2006 and was labelled as being produced by Quarles Harris for a short time before a second tranche of labels appeared stating the port had come from SFE.

The 1994 vintage followed the 1995 onto the shelves in 2010. This was very good value for money being priced at £12 per bottle if purchased during a promotion. I presume this was not one of the top names from SFE but represented terrific value for money even if from one of the smaller or newly acquired houses. I found this to be a bit variable with my scores ranging from 80-90. At its best it is a very good port. I did wonder whether some of the variability might be down to storage by Tesco but the UK supermarkets are pretty good at managing their supply chains so it probably isn't caused by this.

I've seen the 1997 on the shelves but haven't tried one yet. I would expect it to be a good quality vintage port just coming into its drinking window now - the 1997s seem to be maturing early.

£16 per bottle seems a very good price for a bottle of 1997 vintage port from one of the top producers.

well maybe the difference between the bottles you had might actually be different ports. as it's a supermarket brand it wouldn't surprise me if the bought large quantities of different makes.
has anybody looked up selo numbers on these bottles? they might come up with more specific producer names.

[Al B.]

well maybe the difference between the bottles you had might actually be different ports. as it's a supermarket brand it wouldn't surprise me if the bought large quantities of different makes.
has anybody looked up selo numbers on these bottles? they might come up with more specific producer names.

You are quite right, there could have been several different tranches all labelled as "Tesco's Finest 1994 Vintage Port" with the only thing we know for certain being that they were all supplied by Symington Family Estates (which all the labels have included in the small print). There could well have been different ports in the bottles. I've not looked at the sello numbers to see whether they are close together and therefore likely to be the same port - that's a good idea and one which I might follow up as and when I can get hold of my bottles.

I also like the idea of looking up the sello numbers to see which producer has registered these, but I suspect it will be SFE rather than a specific shipper. Is there a website where you can type in a sello number and see who the producer was who used this number? If so, I can supply a handful of sello numbers from the 1994 vintage and can easily go and look up a few on the shelves of the 1997 vintage.

[Eric Menchen]

I also like the idea of looking up the sello numbers to see which producer has registered these, but I suspect it will be SFE rather than a specific shipper. Is there a website where you can type in a sello number and see who the producer was who used this number?

http://www.ivdp.pt/pagina.asp?codPag=16 ... 2&idioma=0

[A dschus]

Purchased a few bottles this week.

2 x Martinez 1997
1 x Quinta do Vesuvio 1991, 1992, and 1995
1 x Dow 1970

All bottles except for the Dow was under $23 :)

[Andy Velebil]

Purchased a few bottles this week.

2 x Martinez 1997
1 x Quinta do Vesuvio 1991, 1992, and 1995
1 x Dow 1970

All bottles except for the Dow was under $23 :)

Were those 1/2 bottle cask samples?

[Alan McDonald]

Thank you all for your further comments on the Tesco VP. Sorry that it took the thread off topic a wee bit.

[LOUISSS J]

2 X Fonseca Guimaraens 2012
I will drink one soon and the last one in 10 or 15 years.