Smith Woodhouse 1977 (?)

[Philip Harvey]

I recently bought a couple of bottles of Justerini & Brooks 1977 Vintage port which is described on the label as being "specially bottled in Oporto for Justerini & Brooks.....shipped by Smith Woodhouse & Ca".

Should this to be exactly the same wine that Smith Woodhouse bottled under their own name and label that year, or could it possibly be a slightly different blend selected especially for the J&B? Justerinis think that it is the same but as I have never tatsed the SW 77 from an 'own label' bottle myself, I have no notes to compare.

I did try looking for a "contact" link on the various Symingtons websites but without success.

Thanks for any input anyone has.

[Al B.]

Philip

I don't have any experience with the "own label" wines of Justerinis, but I have had similar conversations with people in Berry's. Berry's and Justerinis being long standing rivals, you might imagine that what one company does, the other will do something very similar.

I have been categorically told that the wine bottled in a particular year under the Berry's label is exactly the same wine as the shipper who supplied it put into their own bottles. Effectively, all of the shippers first choice wine was bottled into unlabelled bottles and then some of those were given Berry's labels.

Maybe Justerini's did something similar.

Sounds like you have the perfect excuse to carry out a blind tasting...

Alex

[Derek T.]

I can't see where the benefit is in doing this for either the shipper or the merchant.

As this thread demonstrates there is a natural tendency to assume that an own label bottle would have an inferior, or at least different, wine inside to that labelled by the shipper in their own name. Although I have absolutely no evidence to support it I would also assume that this has a direct impact on the price in that consumers would be more likely to pay full market value for the "real" label and slightly less for the own label.

Are the merchants doing this simply to provide there customers with a cheaper price? Can anyone in the trade (ideally someone from Symington) validate the position put forward by BBR?

Derek

[Stuart Chatfield]

I think it is just the fact that from '75 onwards they had not yet come to terms with the historcal shock of not being able to bottle their own. If you look, this sort of thing was common on 75s 77s and 80s but has fizzled out since and is now less prevalent.

I've got some "Wine Society" SW77 and some "Oporto" SW77 and I'm sure they're just the same.

[Al B.]

Berry's still sell "Berry Brothers'" port labelled under their own name. If you have a look at their website you can see they are currently offering the 1991 (Warre), 1994 (Smith Woodhouse), 1997 (Warre), 2000 (Smith Woodhouse) and 2003 (Quinta de la Rosa).

I guess the economics are the same as the supermarkets, just on a smaller scale. Presumably the wine merchant commits to buy a specific and relatively large parcel of the production and receives a discount for doing so, much of which is passed on to the customer. The merchant is able to support his hard won reputation, the shipper has a reasonable proportion of his volume sold in one hit. I notice that the shippers listed out above are not the ones who would sell out their production very quickly.

In the past, I have also been a little dismissive of Merchant's own label wines that have been bottled in Oporto. However, having recently tried - and been impressed by - the 1997 Berry's I have decided to be a little more adventurous. If these are "first choice" blends then they represent super bargains. I will put it to the test later in the year as I own some bottles of Warre '83 and also a couple of bottles of the 1983 Berry Brothers (Warre). I'll try a comparative tasting of the two and report my thoughts here.

Alex

[Stuart Chatfield]

Maybe we're talking about two different things:

1. where a merchant buys up a quinta / vineyard's excess produce/spare barrels to sell as their own-labelled wine and are open and honest about where it comes from. This, I expect, will be different from the barrels used for the quinta's own wine (or the shipper they supply too) but may not necessarily be much worse. (However, they are possibly a different blend). The BBR house wines come into this category, I think.

2. merchants who like to have their own name printed on the bottle of shippers' own vintages in the place where pre-75 they would have stated that they bottled it (like my 77SW and 80 Taylors I have in my cellar, "bottled for" the Wine Soc.) These I expect are the same wine, but with bespoke labels. Certainly my Oporto SW77 and my Wine Soc SW 77 have identical bottles, corks and even labels (except for the extra few words).

[Philip Harvey]

Thanks for the input chaps.

By the way, HRH Jancis pointed out a few months ago that Berry's own label "William Pickering 20yr old Tawny" is made by Quinta do Noval but at £22.95 a bottle, represents excellent value when compared to prices of around £35 per bottle for the same wine under a QdN label.

Once again, Berry's insist that this is the same wine as QdN bottle under their own name, but to paraphrase Christine Keeler, they would say that wouldn't they.

As Derek says, it would be interesting to get Symingtons view in respect of the Justerini/Wine Society 1977 SW and I would have emailed them but there seems to be no way of contacting the company via any of their websites.

Philip

[Roy Hersh]

Yesterday, I asked Rupert Symington to clarify this for us. His response:

"The BBR Smith is the same as the real Smith, and very very good!"