For The Love Of Port

Roy Hersh wrote:My Whisperkool 4200 is a decade old and just stopped working a few weeks ago. My cellar is underground and two sides are backed up to earth, while two are adjoining other rooms in my downstairs. The original contractor is APEX but the local company (which was the national HQ) sold the biz a couple of years ago.

Do you think I am best served by calling them anyway ... a new company, a decade later ... or trying to find a refrigerations specialist that might be able to figure out what went wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Party at Roy's, we've got to drink it all before it goes bad At 10 years old I'd say you got your monies worth, time to just buy a new one. Advancements in cooling systems have come a long way and the new ones are probably much more efficient.

Mine is all on-site. 77% Italy (20,17,16 Piedmont, Veneto, Tuscany), followed by 10% Portugal (all port).

Roy,

Refrigerator guys can fix anything IF THEY CAN GET THE PARTS.

Moses Botbol wrote:Calls are free, give it a shot.

I agree. Can't hurt to give them a call, but I suspect you've reached the end of the product's projected life cycle and that the correct solution is going to be to buy a new unit.

Sort of like the time I took my Craftsman weed whacker in to Sears to get it fixed, and the guy at the service desk said "well we can fix it for you if you want... it'll run about $125... or you could go right over there to that display and buy a new one for $99."

Glenn E. wrote:

Moses Botbol wrote:... I took my Craftsman weed whacker in to Sears to get it fixed, and the guy at the service desk said "well we can fix it for you if you want... it'll run about $125... or you could go right over there to that display and buy a new one for $99."

They were just trying to get you using a new weed whacker that will break in a year or two (unlike your old weed whacker which probably lasted a decade) and when it does break it will be unfixable.

I just made three simple brass parts as replacements for a friend whose weed whacker is no longer made or supported. Those parts lasted for many years. The ones I just made will last as long or longer.

Thanks for the advice!

I keep 60 cases offsite. Costs $ 14 a case for a year. Stored in temperature controlled lockers that hold 30 cases each. My collection is 50% port and the rest is mostly red table wine or German whites. I also would like to say that it is all DRC and First Growths but I have not bought any of that since 1995, when they priced me out of the market. I feel for you, Roy, on whether to repair or replace the unit. From what I have seen on-line it looks like a plug and play unit you could replace with a mail order unit. Good luck. I love doing inventory as I almost always come out ahead rather than short. Then the "lost" bottle becomes an experiment in how more aging affected the wine. I could tell you blood curdling stories about overly aged wine but me throat, me throat is too dry, need to nip over for a drink. Jim

I just couldn't cope without my offsite storage. I have a wine fridge at home that holds around 160 bottles - roughly 15 months' drinking. I have offsite storage with three different wine merchants that I use for full cases (or six packs), offsite storage at Octavian for medium-term storage of mixed cases, plus a small locker in a purpose built, refrigerated and humidity controlled wine store in Chelsea that I can access pretty much any time I want.

Cost wise, I actually looked at all these recently as I was trying to figure out what my options would be when the children leave the nest. Current storage costs run at:
Chelsea walk-in storage - GBP 1.46 per bottle, per year (say $26.30 per case at today's exchange rates)
Octavian medium term storage - GBP 1.00 per bottle, per year ($18 per case, per year)
Merchant storage - GBP 0.75 per bottle, per year ($13.50 per case, per year)

Having no cellar under the house at home, and very strong advice from a structural engineer that it would be extremely unwise to put one in, I have been looking at the economics of converting one of the childrens' bedrooms into a walk in wine store once they have moved out of the family home. I could do this either by using lots of insulation and a cooler unit, but I'm also very tempted to invest in one of the modular walk-in wine cabinets such as these, but they are rather expensive - that's a lot of wine I could buy for the same money!

I was with my two best friends this past Sunday, along with all of our wives and some of the children. We had copious quantities of wine and later with Port (1980 Dow VP) the adults played a fun game of "truth or dare". I was on the far side of the table, and was last in line to vent my spleen. Everyone was getting rather personal (the 3 men have known one another for nearly 5 decades) and disclosing things that surprised each other and the wives as well.

As I knew that later this year, I will be moving all of my wine holdings from my London wine storage (@ Seckford's); and my wife would find out at that time anyway, I thought this would be a great time to disclose the fact that I've had this offsite storagee for more than a dozen years. We've only been married for 12 and my obtaining most of these bottles precedes my meeting Dorene. My wife was obviously shocked by this disclosure, which I realized would be the case ... but this was less incredible after some of the other things that were "aired" before me. She asked how many bottles and what types of wines were in there and I gave her an approximation.

One of the other wives is a shark of a divorce lawyer and joked with me that now that I've disclosed this information ... according to NY law, Dorene was now an equal partner in all wine in my London stash. Fortunately, I live in WA and NY laws do not apply, nor am I ever planning to get a divorce. So, it was a rather safe way to FINALLY break the news of my "secret" wine stash, which has a good amount of Port, some Bdx purchased on release and lots of well aged Burgundy and Chablis too (all of the latter wines purchased in person on release). Actually, beyond being curious initially, my wife was rather amused that I was able to keep this a secret for our entire marriage. Like I said, she was going to find out later this year when the bottles arrived at home and she would DEFINTELY have noticed all of these cases sitting on the floor in the cellar as my racking is pretty much full.

It was a good time to let go of the only secret that I've kept from my family. No harm, no foul and I am v. much looking forward to having all of my wines in one cellar for the very first time.

Roy Hersh wrote:Thanks for the advice!

Did you get it fixed?

Long ago. Yes.

Roy Hersh wrote:

As I knew that later this year, I will be moving all of my wine holdings from my London wine storage (@ Seckford's); and my wife would find out at that time anyway, I thought this would be a great time to disclose the fact that I've had this offsite storagee for more than a dozen years. We've only been married for 12 and my obtaining most of these bottles precedes my meeting Dorene. My wife was obviously shocked by this disclosure, which I realized would be the case ... but this was less incredible after some of the other things that were "aired" before me. She asked how many bottles and what types of wines were in there and I gave her an approximation.

Actually, beyond being curious initially, my wife was rather amused that I was able to keep this a secret for our entire marriage. Like I said, she was going to find out later this year when the bottles arrived at home and she would DEFINTELY have noticed all of these cases sitting on the floor in the cellar as my racking is pretty much full.

Fellow FTLOP'ers,

Here's what I read. My wife found out I've got a slew of wine coming soon she didn't know about. I have no room for it as my cellar is already full. You all must come up here later this year and help me drink down my cellar to make room so she doesn't find out how much I really have coming.

Now that is funny.

Andy Velebil wrote:Fellow FTLOP'ers,
Here's what I read. My wife found out I've got a slew of wine coming soon she didn't know about. I have no room for it as my cellar is already full. You all must come up here later this year and help me drink down my cellar to make room so she doesn't find out how much I really have coming.

We'll be glad to come up and help!

Roy Hersh wrote:I thought this would be a great time to disclose the fact that I've had this offsite storagee for more than a dozen years.

Ha! I'm sure there's a fair bit of chicanery involving numbered seckford accounts from a few others on this forum as well!

Rob,

That wouldn't surprise me in the least.

On the old eBob/Squires Forum there was a brilliant thread of how wine collectors had to sneak their wines into the cellar, have secret credit card accounts ... statements mailed to post office boxes and other such tactics to keep spouses in the dark. It was hilarious actually. I am fortunate my wife really likes to drink Port. If there was that much old Madeira in my UK cellar, I could never have come clean.

Rob C. wrote:Ha! I'm sure there's a fair bit of chicanery involving numbered seckford accounts from a few others on this forum as well!

Derek T. wrote:

Rob C. wrote:Ha! I'm sure there's a fair bit of chicanery involving numbered seckford accounts from a few others on this forum as well!

The best part of email...no paper statements being mailed to the house.

The best part of offsite...they accept my shipments straight from the retailer without anyone else knowing.

Andy Velebil wrote:

Derek T. wrote:

Rob C. wrote:Ha! I'm sure there's a fair bit of chicanery involving numbered seckford accounts from a few others on this forum as well!

The best part of email...no paper statements being mailed to the house.

The best part of offsite...they accept my shipments straight from the retailer without anyone else knowing.

But errors do happen. Last week I returned home from London to find a heavy box that had been delivered a few days earlier complete with Seckford Wines packing tape that had been mistakenly despatched rather than deposited in my off-site account.

DOH!!!

Derek T. wrote:But errors do happen. Last week I returned home from London to find a heavy box that had been delivered a few days earlier complete with Seckford Wines packing tape that had been mistakenly despatched rather than deposited in my off-site account.

Uh-Oh
Derek's better half>> <<Derek