A pipe of port is around 500l in capacity (about 56 cases of 12 bottles). You can still buy a "pipe of port" but it has to be in bottles when it is exported. There is a famous example of someone buying a pipe of port for their god-daughter - Joanna - through Berry Brothers. 56 cases of Cockburn 1967 and these were labelled with a label dedicated to the god-daughter. I know it is still possible to buy a pipe of port and have tailored labels put on the bottles, but I don't know many people who have the disposable income and inclination to spend £20,000 on a single shipper from a single vintage.
I'm sure it would be within the IVDP rules and guess that some of the smaller producers would be very happy to sell you a pipe of port, which remained in their cellars, was looked after by them and which was slowly emptied over time on request by being bottled on demand - a single colheita bottled in multiple lots. Probably quite pricey, but probably possible.
You'd have to bend the rules considerably to be able to have your own barrel of port in your own cellar outside Portugal. I know of only one place that does this (Gordon's Wine Bar in London). They have two barrels behind the bar, one of tawny and one of ruby, and you can buy a glass of port from the wood. They way in which they manage to keep this going is that they simply buy bottles of port and top the barrels up regularly and the contents are consumed - effectively they have created a solera system of constantly refreshing the port with new port.
In theory, Gordon's appraoch could be used elsewhere. Buy an old Port pipa, buy 56 cases of port in bottle. Ship both to the US / UK / Canada / Australia. Pull the cork on 672 bottles of port and become the owner of the only pipe of port maturing outside the Douro region. Happy days.
PS - even at my rate of consumption, it would take me over 8 years to consume a pipe of port - and that's if I never drink any other type of port in that time. That's a lot of port!
Pipe dream?
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