1980 vintage with website of producer printed in label?

[D. Martinez]

Dear all -

I have a Graham's Porto vintage 1980 I bought recently. This is the first porto I buy that is older than the Internet. After closer inspection at home, I found it has the Graham's website printed in the back label. How is this possible? How can I probe the authenticity of this vintage port? Makes me nervous to see that in a label when the wine was bottled almost 15 years before the world wide web was made available.

Am I missing something here?

Thanks for your help!

[Eric Menchen]

There are lots of bottles sitting in the lodges of VNdG waiting to be released, at which point they will be labeled for their target market. No sense in putting on a label just to have the glue decay for 20 years.

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[Moses Botbol]

The back labels are often added later by importer or distributor. I would not worry so much just yet. What does the cork say? 1980 Graham is fair game to drink now. I don't think a faker would put something like a company URL on a back label nor is '80 Graham a sought after bottle to fake. I drank through a case of '80 Graham a few years ago. Under-the-radar vintage as most 1980 vintages are.

I would put strong odds that your port is authentic.

[Phil W]

As Eric describes, vintage ports are released by the producers not only at the time of bottling, but also for many, many years after that. When buying from merchants, you will sometimes see the bottles offered as being "ex-cellars" having just been released after being stored ever since bottling by the producer. The bottles are labelled prior to shipping from the producer, so it is perfectly common to have a recent label on an old Oporto-bottled vintage port. It is unlikely that you have anything to worry about. Enjoy your port!

[D. Martinez]

Thanks a lot Eric, Moses and Phil for your replying so quickly!

I feel much better now, I did not know that about the labeling process. That explains why the label does not look like 36 year old label.

I went to Portugal (Sintra) and the oldest porto I found from early 1800s had a pretty old label (see picture), just 10K Euro.

Cheers.

[Eric Menchen]

I went to Portugal (Sintra) and the oldest porto I found from early 1800s had a pretty old label (see picture), just 10K Euro.

I had hoped to make it to Sintra on my last trip, but spent too much time enjoying Carcavelos. Sintra looks like a great place to visit, but I suspect not a particularly good place to buy Port. I bet those old bottles have been standing up through plenty of heat cycles. Your 1980 bottle probably tastes better.