Port Buying Strategy

[Stewart T.]

I don't think this topic has been discussed in a while, but I was curious what people's current Port buying strategies are.

I find that I have healthy amounts of 1997 Birth year Ports for my son, and ample amounts from the late 90's - 2007's. What I've started to do is to look for some older Ports (vintage and tawny) at auctions and try to selectively fill in some of the older years.

How about others? Hoping to perhaps pick up some tips from those who have more structured buying strategies (knowing, of course, that all of tastes and goals may be a little different).

[Glenn E.]

I'm always looking for birth year Ports (1964), especially ones that I don't already have.

But otherwise, I too am mostly looking to fill in with more mature vintages now. I have good supplies of major vintages from 1985 on so really just need to fill in with bottles from the 1960s and 1970s. Of course I'm always on the lookout for a bargain, too!

[Andy Velebil]

I'm on a bit of a break right now mainly due to a home renovation going on and I'm running out of storage room. But my main focus now is older vintages with a little bit of some younger stuff between. Mainly cherry picking the top bottles to lay down for when I retire

[Al B.]

My port buying strategy started with Uncle Tom persuading me to try and understand what I like to drink.

So I looked back at my tasting notes and found that my drinking pattern was fairly stable. The age of the port I enjoy drinking from my cellar is like this:
AGE
10 or less = 4%
11 - 16 = 3%
17 - 21 = 5%
22 - 29 = 15%
30 - 39 = 26%
40 - 49 = 15%
50 - 59 = 5%
60 - 69 = 4%
70 - 79 = 1%
80 - 99 = 3%
100+ = 3%
Birth Year = 8%
Other (ie. non-vintage) = 8%

Then I modelled how my bottles would age over the next 30-40 years and how my drinking pattern would affect the number of bottles in my cellar each year. This gave me a desired profile for the bottles I should have in my cellar today and what I should be buying on release (or soon afterwards) in the future.

Then I matched the desired profile with what I had and started buying to eliminate the differences.

With careful targetted buying I have managed to get the gaps down to just three older vintages: 1983, 1980 and 1963. These are therefore the vintages that I am particularly interested in buying and will use a disproportionate share of my port buying budget to pick up these vintages from good provenance.

But that doesn't stop me from continuing to buy other things - older and interesting items that I don't see often.

And that is my buying strategy.

At least one other port lover laughs at me - because his buying strategy is to buy what he likes, and to drink what he fancies at the time he opens his cellar door - and that works for him, but does make us laugh at the difference between us. I prefer more structure to the way I approach my drinking as I enjoy the anticipation that comes with knowing what I will be drinking next, or in a couple of months, or even next year. My drinking list for the rest of this year includes:
Smith Woodhouse 1999 LBV, Morgan 1991, Cavadinha 1987, Churchill 1985, Fonseca 1985, Grahams 1985, Martinez 1985, Offley 1983, Warre 1983, Smith Woodhouse 1980, Noval 1978, Gould Campbell 1977, Quarles Harris 1977, Warre 1977, Vargellas 1976 and for the Christmas Offline, an unknown that might be Graham 1945.

[Stewart T.]

Thanks Alex -

That was really informative!

I find that I continually look for great bargains in any decent vintage, and like you are willing to take a risk on some obscure bottles at an attractive price. I certainly haven't mature my buying strategy to the place I want to be yet - I have many holes in my vintage lineups, and I always seem to become aware of them a few weeks before an FTLOP themed tasting and I realize that I don't have any bottles that fit the theme.

At least on one occasion, I got a screaming deal on some bottles of 1970 VP from tier 2 producer and thought is was the best QPR for ANY Port I've ever purchased. However, when i started looking around to buy more, the price was double (or triple) and the QPR wasn't so great. Ah, the trials and travails of a Port buyer...

Hope you and the rest of our UK friends are doing well!

[Paul Fountain]

As I haven't been collecting for that long, I've generally been buying fairly young to build up the collection. I started with 2003s 04s and 05s and have started to work my way back into the 90s, while picking up a few older. My buying decisons have a lot to do with whats around at a good price, mostly at auctions as we just don't have the range available here. At this stage I still need more of everything, but I thik in time I'll start to look to back fill with some older vintages to start to even things out a bit.

[Tom Archer]

My core ambition has been to create a cellar which only needs the regular addition of newly released VPs in order to provide an adequate supply of bottles covering two centuries of vintages. (My own mortality is disregarded for this purpose)

That ambition is slowly approaching fulfillment.

The annual input of young VPs amounts to about nine cases (108 bottles p.a.). These I cellar as Code K (for Kindergarten). Once the bottles have reached their 18th year, they become classified as Code L (for Ladies-in-waiting)

Every year, I select approximately 72 bottles from the ladies in waiting to join the ranks of the Code C (for Current drinking)

The number of bottles in the current drinking cellar is set at exactly 2000 at the start of each year. The maximum number of bottles of any single VP is 24.

Bottles that reach the age of 25 without making the grade for the current drinking cellar become Code O (for Old maids) They will be tucked away until someone wants to buy them, or I need the space (or the money..) - failing that, the plan is to sell them into the 40th birthday market when they reach that age.

Of the 72 bottles drawn each year from the current drinking cellar, only about 24 are under 40 years old. A further 24 are aged about 40-50 years old, and a further 12 about 50-60 years old.

The cellar is designed to yield up a dozen bottles over 60 years of age each year, from a total stock of not less than 250 bottles of that age or older.

A third of the bottles that make it to 60 years will also make it to 80 years, with a minimum stock of 100, 80yr+ bottles

Of the bottles that make it to 80, a quarter will make it to 120, or an average of one bottle making it to 120+ every year.

Of those, 60% are intended to be drunk before their 140th year, and a further 20% by their 160th birthday. 10% are to be drunk between 160 & 200 years, and a further 10% (one bottle a decade on average) drunk at 200 years.

In order to force the consumption of the most ancient bottles, no bottle may exceed 200 years of age.

Tom