Aged Tawny, Year or Years?

[Frederick Blais]

I'm just curious to get the opinions or maybe the real reason behind this.

Why some producer are using Tawny 10 Year Old while others Tawny 10 YearS old. Are both valid or one better than the other?

[Luc Gauthier]

I think it comes down to proper syntax
A 10 year old tawny sounds better

[Glenn E.]

I suspect it is basically a translation error, or perhaps more correctly differences in languages.

In Portuguese, the category is "10 anos" which is plural. "10 Years" is the literal translation.

But in English, that doesn't really make sense so we have to change it to 10 year old, or 10 years old, either of which is a legitimate expression of what the Portuguese means.

To me, it looks and sounds more correct to use the singular on the label. That is essentially saying "this is a 10 year old tawny Port." (Nevermind that that's not what the category means; that's a different discussion.) To use the plural one would need to re-arrange the sentence to "this tawny Port is 10 years old" and that just looks and sounds weird.

But perhaps more importantly, I suspect that one or the other is required by law in various markets, so seeing both probably just means you're seeing bottles intended for different markets.

[Luc Gauthier]

Would you say :
Glenn has aged while tasting a 10 year old tawny
Or
An aged Glenn has tasted 10 year old tawnys

[Andy Velebil]

Would you say :
Glenn has aged while tasting a 10 year old tawny
Or
An aged Glenn has tasted 10 year old tawnys

Depends on how far along he is in his tasting.

[Glenn E.]

Would you say :
Glenn has aged while tasting a 10 year old tawny
Or
An aged Glenn has tasted 10 year old tawnys

Depends on how far along he is in his tasting.

It takes me a while to drink an entire bottle of Port, you know!

[Phil W]

It's usually a "Tawny, 10 years old" or "10 year old Tawny", i.e. The choice depends whether the word Tawny comes before or after the age. Of course, potentially someone from marketing then gets involved without sufficiently explicit instruction and in designing the label everything gets moved around...

[Phil W]

(also not forgetting other options which allow the above ordering to be broken, e.g. "Port, 10 years old, Tawny" etc)

[Mike J. W.]

Would you say :
Glenn has aged while tasting a 10 year old tawny
Or
An aged Glenn has tasted 10 year old tawnys

Personally, I haven't aged in 10 years.

[Eric Menchen]

And at the risk of starting a tangent, one can find on commercial labels Grahams, Graham's, and Grahams'.

[Andy Velebil]

And at the risk of starting a tangent, one can find on commercial labels Grahams, Graham's, and Grahams'.

You just had to go there didn’t you haha

[Glenn E.]

And at the risk of starting a tangent, one can find on commercial labels Grahams, Graham's, and Grahams'.

Is that Vintage With An Indication of Grammar?

[John M.]

Honestly, I love this. Too much in our lives is over-thought, manipulated, on a unified "message" etc. The fact that there are great oddities is charming and honest and another reason to LOVE Port....just my two cents.

[Al B.]

Decidedly going off on a tangent, what is the plural form of tawny?

[Luc Gauthier]

Honestly, I love this. Too much in our lives is over-thought, manipulated, on a unified "message" etc. The fact that there are great oddities is charming and honest and another reason to LOVE Port....just my two cents.

+1

[Glenn E.]

Decidedly going off on a tangent, what is the plural form of tawny?

My vote would be for 'tawnies'.

[Phil W]

Decidedly going off on a tangent, what is the plural form of tawny?

A tawny port; many tawny ports.
A tawny; many tawnies.

[Phil W]

Also if it was Graham drinking the tawnies instead of Glenn, we might be looking at Graham's Graham's, Graham's Grahams and Graham's Grahams' tawnies. If Graham also had a friend tasting with him and his friend's name was also Graham, or perhaps Mr John Graham named his son Graham, and his son also named his son Graham, and the son and grandson met to drink, then we could have Graham Graham's Graham's, Grahams and Grahams', and Grahams' Graham's, Grahams and Grahams' tawnies. I need a lie down now.

[Mike J. W.]

Also if it was Graham drinking the tawnies instead of Glenn, we might be looking at Graham's Graham's, Graham's Grahams and Graham's Grahams' tawnies. If Graham also had a friend tasting with him and his friend's name was also Graham, or perhaps Mr John Graham named his son Graham, and his son also named his son Graham, and the son and grandson met to drink, then we could have Graham Graham's Graham's, Grahams and Grahams', and Grahams' Graham's, Grahams and Grahams' tawnies. I need a lie down now.

That reminds me of the classic Monty Python skit:
"Customer:
Morning

Waitress:
Morning

Customer:
What have you got?

Waitress:
Well, there's egg and bacon
Egg sausage and bacon
Egg and spam
Egg, bacon and spam
Egg, bacon, sausage and spam
Spam, bacon, sausage and spam
Spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam
Spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam tomato and spam
Spam, spam, spam, egg and spam
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam..."

[Phil W]

The port equivalent would perhaps require a team of us to hold a Graham's vertical, at the Graham's Lodge, while wearing viking helmets and singing "port, port, port, port" whenever anyone orders a glass or asks about the tastings. Silly walks to and from the toilets obligatory.