Building a collection

[Mark Hudson]

I have been giving a lot of thought to building my collection.

I want to have a fairly concrete plan in place prior to beginning any major purchasing, so I have been holding off.

What I thought I might do is begin by filling the more recent vintage years from say 2007 and 2003 with say 6 bottle of each major house. Then keep doing this with future generally declared years.

I also want on a ,ore limited scale to begin to collect drinkable or will be drinkable soon years.

I am thinking of starting at 77 and trying to fill a couple bottles of each of the higher rated houses.

What years between 77 and 2003 should I focus on doing this similar plan, and/or what do you think of the plan in general for starting a collection?

What am I not considering?

[Moses Botbol]

Buy whatever you can between those vintages. All of the major declared vintages in that range are "good". It comes down to the particular vintage and producer rather than just one element. Personally, I would go 1970 over 1977 and the price difference is not much.

[Tom Archer]

You need to determine a couple of variables, and from that, compute the number of bottles you need to lay down.

Firstly, how many bottles of VP does your cellar need to yield each year?

Secondly, you need to to decide the drinking age of those bottles.

For example, suppose you wanted to drink 24 bottles each year that are over 30 years old, and another 12 that are over 40 years old.

Your cellar then has to yield 36 bottles each year that are 30 or more years old to fill your 'over 30' section which in turn has to yield 12 bottles annually to supply the 'over 40' section.

So 36 bottles in, 12 bottles out, over a ten year span - the average of 36 and 12 is 24, multiplied by 10 = 240 bottles. You then need to do a similar calculation for every other time period to determine the total number and age profile.

Warning - following this formula, coupled to moderately heavy consumption, and an aversion to immature VP; has led me to amass a rather large cellar!

Tom

[Jeff G.]

really?

Yes because picking up 40 cases of port for an everyday drinker has nothing to do with a large cellar

[Tom Archer]

Yes because picking up 40 cases of port for an everyday drinker has nothing to do with a large cellar

Who said anything about 40 cases?

[Jeff G.]

oops, foot in mouth disease!

[Al B.]

Mark,

I made the mistake of talking to Uncle Tom when I was at the same stage of trying to figure out how to put some structure around the cellar that I needed to build up in order to be able to drink the sort of port that I enjoy. I say mistake because the result of that conversation was quite expensive...

The first thing I did was to work out roughly how many bottles of port a year I wanted to come out of my cellar.

Next, I calculated the age profile of the bottles I like to drink. While I enjoy some really young port (as in, current release) for the fruit bomb effect, and I also like to open a handful of tennage bottles a year to see how they're doing, my main enjoyment comes from drinking vintage port that is roughly in the 21-50 year old window. My profile was roughly:
0-10 years - 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%
Older and NV - 14%
Birth year - 9%

Then I had to work out how the port I had today would age over the next few decades and what would be left at the end of each year when I had taken out and drunk from the cellar the bottles that would be consumed.

The result of all this was that I figured out how many bottles I needed to own from each already declared vintage and how many I would need to buy in future vintages. That gave me a target and a focus for my buying and - with about still 3½ cases to buy - I am now there. All that remains is for me to buy 2-3 cases when there is a declaration.

It also means that I know which vintages I have bought too heavily...

[Tom Archer]

My own calculation was done numerically, rather than on percentages:

Bottles of VP required each year for drinking at home - 48
Bottles for social occasions - 24

Total: 72

Of these, the minimum age of opening is:

Under 30 - 8
30 to 40 - 16
40 to 50 - 24
50 to 60 - 12
60 to 70 - 5
70 to 80 - 3
80 to 90 - 2
90 to 120 - 1
Over 120 - 1

With bottles entering my vintage port current drinking cellar in their 20th year (on average), this requires that section of my cellar to hold 2000 bottles.

Amassing the cellar is still a work in progress, with the 60-70 and 70-80 yr sections currently underweight, although this will correct itself in 2015 when the '55's turn 60 and the 45's turn 70, provided I buy as many as I drink from those age ranges in the meantime..

Tom

[Mark Hudson]

Thanks very much for the insight. The truth is we ( the wife and I along with friends) are easily drinking an average of a bottle a week.

If I am really trying to get a cellar that yields 50 bottle a year....well I don't think I can do very old vp.

I am going to be stocking a smaller percentage of vp and supplementing with lbv and tawnys.

Thanks for showing me the theory, I just need to adjust to my budget.

[Paul Fountain]

Mark,
I've been building my collection for around 18 months, starting from scratch. I'm buying mostly of mine at auction, but also at retail when the price is right. It might be different for you, but I've been finding that the best value seems to be around 2003 for the generally declared vintages, so I've been buying up few of those. I've also looked to other years like 2001 2004 and 2005 to bulk up my collection. I used the tasting note database a lot to confirm whether something was worth buying. Now that I've got a few bottles (I've just moved past 100 bottles), I've started to go back to the 90s as well as picking up a few 85s and 77s which seem to provide a pretty reasonable quality to price ratio. I also buy LBV's for more casual drinking.
You'll have some advantages over me, in that you'll have a bigger range available at better prices. Good luck!

[Roy Hersh]

Lots of great advice here so far.

Paul, as an unjaded fairly new collector, I must say that, I like the way you think. You've given a different approach for Mark to think about.

It is smart given the pricing to make allocations toward young VP's to guarantee provenance later in life ... while at the same time keeping an eye open for opportunities to score older bottles and under-appreciated vintages from top producers. Our TNDB provides thousands of tasting notes from this community and is a great buying resource as Paul has mentioned. Back filling is a great way to start having a few older bottles to mix in with the young ones. These bottles can later be parlayed to get you into worthy Port tasting events too, which will enable you to try many potentially fine bottles for the cost of buying only one.

The answer to your question is to take a balanced approach and listen to all of the advice above and see what fits best for the space you have, your budget of course, the quantity of bottles you will be removing and your projected number of years for being around to drink these bottles you buy.

Last but not least, I would also seriously consider buying into 1994's now as the pricing on that fantastic vintage will only go up in the future ... how much we don't know, but at least you'll still have owned them for more than half their life by the time you get around to drinking them when they are close to maturity. A great vintage with so many beautiful Ports. For bargains look at 2000 VP's today ... great quality and low prices currently (same with 2003) but also look to some older under-appreciated vintages like 1980 for some stellar wines with over 30 years of age to them. That's my FWIW.

[Rob C.]

Yes - i'd add:

as a betting man, prices for '63s, '66s, '70s, '77s, are only going up from here (even if there's a recession...).

'94s and '97s, as they start to drink over the next few years, are going to rise as well.

'00 / 03 and '07? Storage issues aside, personally i don't think prices will move too much over the next 5 years (unless China takes a liking to VP), though i'm sure some others will argue against me there and there will of course be exceptions to this rule (Capela 07 perhaps?).

So without resorting to the type of complex (and depressing!) calculations that Alex/Tom suggest, I'd advocate starting your back-filling with '94/'97 and older at this stage. Plus at least then you'll only be waiting 5-10 years before you start to drink these rather than 15-20 years! (too long for me!)

Plus some of the really good ports from the Eighties which are starting to drink well now and will last a lifetime (3 obvious ones are F85, G85, D80).

As i am starting from scratch as well, I am looking to pick up a few bottles here and there from 63/66/70 before prices go the way of the '55s, stock up on the really good 80s ports that will provide good current drinking for the next two decades, and pick off some key 94s/97s while they are still immature

[Tom Archer]

My general buying advice at the moment would be to focus on the '70 vintage, and the second division players; which are mostly drinking really well, have loads of life left in them and are often pleasantly inexpensive at auction.

I would agree that buying second tier '94s is a good call, but some of the stars of that vintage seem to be sitting on a rather high pedestal.

However, the vintage to get fully stocked up on right now has to be '63. The birth year merchants will start buying into '3' years seriously after xmas, and aside from port, there's very little '63 stock around.

I predict that UK auction prices for '63 VPs (despite some signs of softening overall) will routinely top £100/btl for even the humblest players, come next summer..

- so buy now!

Tom

[Glenn E.]

One of these days I'm hoping to get a blank copy of Tom's or Alex's spreadsheet so that I can see how badly skewed my cellar is.

I started out much like Rob - just buying what looked like good deals for Ports that had good reviews here and elsewhere. I was not only just starting my collection, but was also new to Port and so I was also still figuring out what I liked. There wasn't a thread like this back then, so it never occured to me to buy based on what I might want to drink (and when) in the future, so I just kept buying good deals.

Unfortunately that left me with a cellar full of all-too-young Vintage Ports. So a couple of years ago I started searching in earnest for VPs from 1970-1985 to help back-fill my cellar. I stumbled upon a huge lot of 1985s, which when added to my nacent collection gave me an 18-bottle horizontal that has now expanded to 24 bottles. I've also found quite a few superb VPs from 1985 and highly recommend that you, too, stock up before they come into vogue. There are also a handful of 1980s and 1983s that you'll probably want to fill in as well.

At this point I've managed to balance my cellar better. I'm still oversupplied with 2003, but otherwise have a good mix and a good supply starting with 1985, then 1987, 1994, 1997, 2003, and 2007. Those are the "pillars" of my supply... of course I also have Ports from other years as well. Just not a case or more.

My supply of older Ports is limited, but I have a decent number from 1977 and 1970. I'll have to buy more of those as I need them, but I think that'll work out okay.

[Tom Archer]

One of these days I'm hoping to get a blank copy of Tom's or Alex's spreadsheet so that I can see how badly skewed my cellar is

When I take my winter sabbatical, I plan to de-personalise my port spreadsheets so others can play with them..

[Glenn E.]

One of these days I'm hoping to get a blank copy of Tom's or Alex's spreadsheet so that I can see how badly skewed my cellar is

When I take my winter sabbatical, I plan to de-personalise my port spreadsheets so others can play with them..

[Al B.]

The calculations aren't that horrible - quite straightforward really.

Let's keep the maths (I'm English, so it's plural) simple. Suppose you are 70 years old, expect to be drinking port for the next 10 years and you like to drink one bottle of port each week. You like to drink:
3 bottles of less than 15 years of age (which would be 2009-1996 in today's money)
4 bottles of 16-21 (1995-1990)
8 bottles of 22-30 (1989-1981)
20 bottles of 31-40 (1980-1971)
12 bottles of 41-50 (1970-1961)
3 bottles of 51-70 (1960-1941)
2 bottles older than 70 (1940+)

So in 10 year's time, when the last bottle is to be taken out of your cellar, you will need to have bottles which are today:
3 bottles which today are 5 years or less (2009-2006) - say 2 x 2009 and 1 x 2007 (or more recent releases)
4 bottles of 6-11 years (2005-2000) - say 2 x 2003 and 2 x 2000
etc.

For year 9's drinking, you will need to have:
3 bottles which today are 6 years or less (2009-2005) - say 2 x 2009 and 1 x 2007
4 bottles of 7-12 years (2004-1999) - say 2 x 2003 and 2 x 2000
etc.

Year 8
3 bottles from 2009-2004 - this time say 1 x 2009 and 2 x 2007
4 bottles from 2003-1998 - say 2 x 2003, 1 x 2000, 1 x 1998
etc.

By the time you work this all the way through, you will very quickly figure out which vintages you need to have in stock and in what quantities to keep your port habit going as your cellar matures. If you follow the logic set out above to the end, it means that the cellar you should be buying towards should have:
8 bottles 2009
10 bottles 2007
13 bottles 2003
16 bottles 2000
1 bottle 1998
15 bottles 1997
1 bottle 1996
1 bottle 1995
24 bottles 1994
17 bottles 1992
18 bottles 1991
1 bottles 1990
2 bottles 1989
5 bottles 1988
18 bottles 1987
6 bottles 1986
39 bottles 1985
44 bottles 1983
10 bottles 1982
46 bottles 1980
5 bottles 1979
7 bottles 1978
60 bottles 1977
6 bottles 1976
9 bottles 1975
5 bottles 1972
43 bottles 1970
17 botles 1967
21 bottles 1966
16 bottles 1963
6 bottles 1960
5 bottles 1958
6 bottles 1955
and 18 bottles from the 1950 vintage or earlier. (Of course, I've used my personal preferences to weight the vintages chosen, but you get the idea.)

Then all you have to do is to compare what you have today with the target numbers above and that becomes your buying target over the life of the cellar. If you have 6 bottles of 1963 port, you should be aiming to buy another 10 over the course of the next 10 years.

But like Glen says, often this kind of approach comes too late and so I find myself with more wines than I should have from recent vintages that have thrown up occasional bargains (2000, 1997, 1994 and 1977, surprisingly)

[Tom Archer]

The big difference between my approach and Alex's can be summed up by the mantra of the Gibson family, who many years ago were great Essex philanthropists..

"Build as though you will live forever, live as though you will die tomorrow"

- My cellar is designed to live forever..

Tom

[Roy Hersh]

Alex,

You had me at "maths."

It reminds me of the Bill Murray movie: L.I.T.

[jean p]

I was going to upload an excel spreadsheet that I threw together as a guide for building a collection, taking cues from the previous posts. Sadly the xls attachments are not allowed. Is there a way to upload it?