Mahmoud Ali wrote:I doubt that everybody in the trade initially knew about it since it was done surreptitiously. Of course over time word would have spread and, as Andy mentioned, eventually even the company executives who, lets not forget, were also in the trade. Similarly, it is also intuitive that the two barrels of the vintage port that were bottled would be marked and perhaps labelled otherwise they might have been forgotten or moved and likely never have been declared.
The story is that Cockburn did not declare the 1977 vintage because they made a decision to augment production of their Special Reserve. It is also about the winemakers disobeying orderers and bottling only two barrels of vintage port. Though the emphasis in on the Special Reserve, it is not inconceivable that they also used the vintage port material in their crusted port. Since crusted port only has a bottling year and not a vintage year one can only estimate and assume the vintage years that went into a crusted port. It is therefore quite feasible that many have tasted old bottles of Cockburn crusted port that may have based on the 1977 vintage. However the story is that the winemakers of Cockburn disobeyed instructions and bottled only two barrels of the 1977 vintage port and it is these bottles that were released by Symingtons.
Mahmoud.
Mahmoud,
I get what you're saying so let me just say this. A number of us on this forum (and TPF) have spoken about this with the, later head, winemaker at Cockburn's who worked there at the time they did it. Somehow his first hand account I trust more than what someone else has written from folk lore.
I have to say I am somewhat uncomfortable with all this ambiguity.
Cockburn did not release a 1977 vintage port, that much we know. However we also know that their winemakers decided to disobey orders and bottled at least two barrels of the 1977 vintage. Other barrels of port from the 1977 vintage, not bottled after two years, could have been used to make crusted port but, by definition, they would no longer be vintage port. Crusted port is made from port of two or three vintages and nothing I've read says anything about how old those ports might be, presumably either one, two, or three, years of age. I have read that Cockburn did release a crusted port bottled in 1998 and therefore it could theoretically contain some one year-old port from the 1977 vintage. They also released one in 1983 and I suppose that could also contain some 1977 port.
I understand that people on this forum have tasted so-called crusted port from the 1977 vintage. However, if indeed the so-called crusted port was made exclusively from the 1977 vintage, it would perforce, by definition, be a port bottles one or three years after the vintage. If a single vintage is bottled two years after the vintage it would be a vintage port, and if bottled four years after the vintage it would be an LBV.
Belive me I do not dismiss the comments here about people having seen or tasted the "1977 Crusted Port", all I'm trying to say is that it probably is a bottle from the original stash of 1997 vintage port.
I've just caught up with the thread and I think you're all violently agreeing with each other.
As I understand it, Cockburn made some port in 1977 which they thought was of excellent quality. I forget who the wine-maker was at the time (it was after John Smithes, who retired in 1970 and before Miguel Corte-Real who started in 1978) but in late 1978 / early 1979 they advised the Allied Head Office in London that the wine in barrel was of excellent quality and could be bottled and declared as Vintage Port.
At that time Allied (actually Showering) were heavily promoting sales of Cockburn Special Reserve. They wanted a quality Port product with high volume to match the quality and volume of Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry. Having too much of a dependency on a single product put their business at risk. Special Reserve sales were growing strongly so, the story goes, the instruction came back from the UK not to bottle any of the 1977 harvest as Vintage Port but to use the volume to support the quality and quantity needed of Special Reserve.
This the team in Portugal did. 1977 was a big vintage and it was not unusual for shippers to be declaring over 60,000 cases (1,000 pipes)- all made at a time when electricity still hadn't reached Vargellas! However, the team in Portugal did select a couple of pipes of the 1977 harvest port and bottled them as a cellar stock, purely for "academic purposes" to see how the wine would mature. Having bottled it and being controlled by the accountants, they had to be able to show how the 1977 harvest wines had been used. Rather than declare the bottles to the IVP as Vintage Port, they made the decision to declare them as Crusted Port. They showed up as stock held in Portugal in the UK based records but since it was stock in bottle it wasn't available for blending into Special Reserve. Crucially it also wasn't associated with a vintage date, only a bottling date so it wasn't immediately obvious to the UK based management team that their orders had been partially ignored.
But the clue is that the bottles were sealed with corks branded "Crusted 1977" even though bottled in 1979. The local records also clearly showed that the only wine which went into this Crusted Port was from the 1977 vintage.
And so a myth was born. This is Port which could have been registered at the time as Vintage Port, but would have caused some unwelcome questions from Head Office had it been done so. It was registered as Crusted Port so the volume and bottles were recognised by the IVP as having been filled but not spotted by management in the UK who were not familiar with the terminology used in the Douro. Local records showed that the only wine used was 1977 so 40 years later when the Symingtons asked to have the designation of the wine changed from Crusted to Vintage they had the paper trail to be able to give the evidence required, and the quality of the wine was up to the standard needed for it to be recognised by the IVDP as Vintage Port.
Your synopsis is very well written. It basically encapsulted what I read many years ago in a now defunct Canadian magazine called Wine Tidings as well as soem of the things I read while researching my post. However your post stictches all the loose threads and weaves a full tapestry with even more information. I thought I read somewhere that the undeclared pipes were bottled with corks that had the word "crusted" on it but when I went looking for it I couldn't find the source.
I found the reference to the corks. It was in an article by Axel Probst in the World of Fine Wine. Tasting a vertical of Cockburn vintage port he notes the following: "It is always a special privilege to taste the best of Cockburn’s ’77 Ruby Ports. As already mentioned, this Port was never declared as Vintage. Instead, the cork says: Crusted 1977."
Would it be fair to say that these bottles with "Crusted 1977" corks were never officially labelled and released as 1979 Crusted Port? Also, when Symington asked to have their crusted declaration changed to a vintage declaration did they also recork the bottles?
Mahmoud Ali wrote:I found the reference to the corks. It was in an article by Axel Probst in the World of Fine Wine. Tasting a vertical of Cockburn vintage port he notes the following: "It is always a special privilege to taste the best of Cockburn’s ’77 Ruby Ports. As already mentioned, this Port was never declared as Vintage. Instead, the cork says: Crusted 1977."
Would it be fair to say that these bottles with "Crusted 1977" corks were never officially labelled and released as 1979 Crusted Port? Also, when Symington asked to have their crusted declaration changed to a vintage declaration did they also recork the bottles?
Mahmoud.
The corks did say Crusted 1977. The Sym's did recork them as to remove the old corks to eliminate confusion and also they are now recorking their older stocks anyways. They kinda killed two birds with one stone as the old saying goes.
I've seen two company labels used for them. I'll attach one and I have to find a pic of the other one (in the thousands of wine pics I have). To my knowledge the bottles were only labeled when pulled out of their cellars. All the ones I saw aging in the old cellar were without labels.
Andy Velebil wrote:I've seen two company labels used for them. I'll attach one and I have to find a pic of the other one (in the thousands of wine pics I have). To my knowledge the bottles were only labeled when pulled out of their cellars. All the ones I saw aging in the old cellar were without labels.
I have the newer label at home, so if you can't find yours I'll dig around to find the bottle and take a picture. It's a more modern style label with, as I recall, quite a bit of red.
As I recall, the picture you've posted is what the labels on Miguel's last 2 bottles looked like when he opened them for us during the 2010 Port Harvest Tour. I have pictures of those bottles, but again would have to dig around to find them on an old hard drive somewhere. (I'm pretty sure they pre-date my cloud storage for photos.)
Andy Velebil wrote:To my knowledge the bottles were only labeled when pulled out of their cellars. All the ones I saw aging in the old cellar were without labels.
That makes eminent sense, since the labels would only get damaged in the cellar. Looking at the label you posted explains some of the confusion surtrounding the vintage, the label says Vintage Port while the cork reads "Crusted 1997".
The Co77 is a nice enough VP, but it's not up with the top players from that vintage.
If these two pipes were the best they had, could the horrid truth be that they didn't actually have enough good juice to declare '77 in the volumes that would be expected, and cooked up the story about reinforcing CSR instead as a marketing stunt..?
Tom Archer wrote:The Co77 is a nice enough VP, but it's not up with the top players from that vintage.
If these two pipes were the best they had, could the horrid truth be that they didn't actually have enough good juice to declare '77 in the volumes that would be expected, and cooked up the story about reinforcing CSR instead as a marketing stunt..?
I would disagree, in part. The original non-recorked one is better, IMO. The recorked one still hasn't recovered from being recorked and I'd agree it's not showing as well at the moment. From a couple producers I've heard from, it can take quite a long time for a Port to recover from that process. No clue as to why, but I'll trust those who have far more experience than I.
A long standing habit of mine is to lay down a half case of crusted from every even numbered year - but despite releases from 2012 and 2014 being on the market, I've yet to see anything from 2010
Tom Archer wrote:And here's another crusted question:
A long standing habit of mine is to lay down a half case of crusted from every even numbered year - but despite releases from 2012 and 2014 being on the market, I've yet to see anything from 2010
Did anyone bottle crusted in that year?
The only one I've possibly found is a 2010 Tanners Crusted (there appears to be a TN link in CellarTracker from Jancis Robinson, but it's behind a paywall). I assume that's a BOB in the UK somewhere??? The only possible info on it I've found is it may be made by Churchill Graham.
