For The Love Of Port

Hey guys,
I saw quite a few TN's about some quite 'old' LBVs and that raised a ? in my mind.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but LBV's are left in casks for 6-7 years before they are bottled, so a 1992 LBV (such as the Smith Woodhouse discussed in the Port forum) would've matured for ~ 6-7 years in bottles. And I also thought that the general consensus was that LBVs do not benefit greatly, if at all, from bottle aging.

So that brings my question : why is there so many old, bottle-aged LBVs in circulation, still available for purchasing ?

Alexis

Alexis,

There are 2 types of LBV's, Traditional (also called unfiltered) and filtered LBV's. Filtered LBV's do not improve with age. However, the traditional ones are unfiltered, like a Vintage Port, and thus throw a sediment and require decanting before drinking. These traditional LBV's will continue to age in the bottle like their big brother the VP.

Smith Woodhouse and Warre are the two proment Traditional LBV's that are on the US market right now. I don't know what is available in Canada though.

I shared a bottle of 1989 Taylor's LBV recently with Stewart, the genius behind this websites functionality and creation. I was not expecting it to be as great as it was. A fabulous bottle of LBV and yet it was not a Traditional LBV. I wish there was more access in the USA to older bottlings of LBV. I gave my last bottle of 1994 Noval LBV (my all time favorite) to my wife to bring to a friend's home for a weekend getaway. Fortunately, I have ten bottles left in my UK stash. I love that wine!

I am currently sipping my way through a Magnum of Taylor's 1982 LBV. Like Roy I didn't expect much from a filtered LBV of this age but it is a very nice wine.

Derek

The first part of your answer comes down to just supply versus demand - low demand for them outside the US (and maybe France and the Iberian peninsula). The second part - even those which do not require decanting, seem to benefit from the additional "storage" time (in my opinion), perhaps due to the nature of port. The tough part is finding ones in retail stores that have been stored properly - they don't get the same handling as "precious" Bordeauxs!

Alexis wrote:So that brings my question : why is there so many old, bottle-aged LBVs in circulation, still available for purchasing ?

another factor is that at least a couple of shippers, Warres and Smith Woodhouse, I believe, bottle age their 'traditional' LBVs themselves before they release them for sale - Warres says for 5 years, not sure about SW - so they aren't going to hit the store shelves for going on 10 years past the vintage date.

Dave is correct, but this fact is not that different than off-vintage VPs. Often times the producers will not release their SQVPs for 5 and often times 10 years, when they believe that releasing them with some bottle age will garner a slightly higher price and offer more value to consumers.