North American Port Cooperative

[alec]

Now that got your attention, didn't it? Wouldn't it be great?

This site (and others) has a rather large number of people who like Port, and we're all buying the stuff from all over creation at different prices and in the meantime supporting tons of middleman companies. Not that I have anything against these guys, but if circumventing them adds a bottle or two per case for free, then away they go.

So what would happen if all these port people got together and formed a Port Cooperative that directly imported port and distributed it to a member network at cost + overhead. Could we come out ahead? I'm guessing we would. I'm also guessing we could probably get ahold of some ports that don't normally make their way into the US...and there's a TON of those.

I'd be interested to hear what people think of such an idea; if anyone knows of existing models, etc. Oh, and if you steal this idea, run off and do it without including me there'll be hell to pay. :twisted:

Cheers,
--Alec

[Frederick Blais]

If I lived in the US, absolutely, there is so much stuff I ear of that I can't get a hand on it.

[Roy Hersh]

Alec,

It is doable. The challenge really boils down to interstate shipping though. This can be a logistical, legal and expensive nightmare. Getting set up to ship to the legal states is a year in working the red tape. Great idea though and I hope that you can make it happen. I'd be interested in discussing it further. Of course if I ever was involved in such a venture, I could no longer be taken seriously about being objective, but that wouldn't stop me from consulting on the project to get it launched if you are seriously considering it.

[Mario Ferreira]

I find this idea interesting. I even volunteer to coordinate things from Portugal. I live a couple hours away from the Douro Valley, a place that I've been visiting on a regular basis for local contacts and also to buy wine from several smaller producers that have very little distribution even in Portugal (not to mention in foreigner markets). Those smaller producers, many with very good wine, have to sell the bulk of their grapes to the major Port houses for they are either unable to find an international importer/distributor or do not have production capacity to supply demands for huge markets.
We may even start something like a Port & Douro Wine Club.

[...] I'm also guessing we could probably get ahold of some ports that don't normally make their way into the US...and there's a TON of those. [...]

Alec - You're totally right on this. /Mario.

[Al B.]

Alec,

I live in the UK but do travel to NY/NJ three or four times a year. Although where I live makes it impractical for me to be a full part of anything like this, I am interested in the idea.

For me, what would be of particular interest, would be whether a co-operative of this sort was able to source older wines with bottle maturity more efficiently than if I go through a middle man.

If the answer to that was "yes", then I would be extremely interested regardless of where the cooperative was based.

Good luck. I hope you get lots of interest and support.

Alex

[alec]

Hmmm, I would think it could source older wines, especially given what people were discussing in the "Acquiring Port" section...the British firms who are storing this stuff for years and then dumping it. If the group had enough clout it may be able to purchase some of those wines before they went to auction.

I will indeed continue to explore this. I am meeting with a wine importer the first week of November; this man kindly donated his time to tell me a bit about how the US wine import trade works. If it's stupidly complicated the idea may have to die; if not, I'm on it.

Mario & Roy, you may get an e-mail from me bouncing some ideas off you. Mario, you're help to identify these smaller producers and negotiate prices would be absolutely key to making this a success. Let's chat soon.

Cheers!
--A

[Mario Ferreira]

Well ..., if the goal is to source old wines - Old Vintage Ports, I guess this cooperative will not work for two reasons:
» First, in my opinion (please correct me if I'm wrong) the best location to find deals on Old Vintage Ports is London (and not in Portugal).
» Second, the small producers have not produced Vintage Ports in the past. Therefore, they do not have Old Wines stored in their cellars (exception made for some particular "Colheitas" only).

I guess the Cooperative idea might suit better to source Young Vintage Ports from smaller producers that do have little distribution and can barely be found overseas. Those Vintages, from those tiny producers, may be excellent deals considering its ratio Price/Quality. However, I guess a Vintage Port from an unknown Producer will never be subject of a speculative price (for those who might considered buying it as an investment to resell in the future).

.... well, this is just a thought.

[alec]

I think it would depend on how the Cooperative functioned and the will of it's members. If the group had the desire to get older ports as well there's no reason they couldn't be shipped from London, particularly if the group had the purchasing power to snag some of those older ports before they hit the auction market.

That would probably be later on, though. I think that the easiest place to start would be recently released ports, as per Mario.

Unfortunately, my meeting with that importer got postponed, so I'm still in the dark about importing regulations. HOWEVER, my hopes were bouyed upon hearing of a similar "Wine Club". It sounded like a group of people got together and purchased a bunch of wines every so often and consolidated shipment into a single container. If this is the case, I would assume that they purchased this wine as "an individual" and were not forced to deal with the stupid labelling nonsense the US Gov't makes importers go through. They would have to pay Customs, though.


If that is possible, then all we'd need is enough people to make this worth our while. There's a lot of UK folk on this site but I'm not sure there's enough people on this side of the pond for it. I'm guessing we'd want at least 20 to 25 people to get started....

[Tom Archer]

In principle, I have no objection to buying mature port on the UK market and shipping to the US at cost plus an agreed (modest) fee - but I would need to be confident that the person at the receiving end was financially sound, and up to speed on regulatory matters with regard to importation.

[Mike Kerr]

Was just browsing some old posts and came across this one I found very interesting. I'm curious if anything happened with that meeting Alex?

Mike.