For The Love Of Port

The big boy on the end is 1800 cc rather than 1500 as a normal magnum is. How common was that and when did they stop bottling them?

Not sure. The UK used some weird shapes and sizes. I have seen Ports in 700 ml and even 1000 ml. So 1800 ml would probably still be a magnum. A Tregnum is another old shape used and it was 2250 ml. which of course is the equivalent of 3 bottles. There were individuals who used to polish off tregnums on their own, at least in Port lore.

Roy Hersh wrote:Not sure. The UK used some weird shapes and sizes. I have seen Ports in 700 ml and even 1000 ml.

I have a 700 ml Fonseca bottle.

I've only had and seen one Tregnam bottle of Port, and that was a Graham's 1977 which I was lucky enough to drink last October. Not a size seen very often, that's for sure. I don't recall ever seeing a 1800ml bottle of VP, but as Roy pointed out there were many sizes used and sometimes it was simply a matter of whatever the Port Producer or bottler could easily get their hands on to use.

Thats an unusual one alright!
700ml and 1L bottles are quite common sizes for spirits (at least in my liquor cabinet. I have several of each). I've not noticed an 1800 ml bottle before but a bit of googling has indicated that it is a standard bottle size for Sake in Japan. I also found rereferences to Japanese whiskey, Mirin and Soy sauce being bottled in 1800 ml bottles. Could this particular bottling have been aimed at the Japanese market?

Paul Fountain wrote:Thats an unusual one alright!
Could this particular bottling have been aimed at the Japanese market?

I'm not sure anyone in Oporto knew where Japan was back in the early 1960s unless they owned a cheap transistor radio.

The importer was Burton-Dinn Inc. in San Franciso, est. 1965 and since ceased to exist, so we can't ask them. The bottle is unmarked (some manufacturers put ID marks in the glass) otherwise - has the typical flash of white paint, of course.

Interesting mystery - why would Dows figure that 61 fluid ounces was just what someone would want....maybe they got a special deal on some bottles? When I have time I should see if there are any auction records including bottle sizes I could look through to see if anyone else used these..

If this was Oporto bottled, then I would say that was all they could get at the time when doing a bottling run. I've been told getting bottles wasn't always easy in Oporto back then so producers used whatever they could get their hands on. Which explains why you can get two different bottle styles from the same VP that were bottled in Oporto. Remember this was before all Port had to be bottled in Oporto, so most was exported to the UK in casks.

And in addition to the UK, quite a few other European countries received shipments in cask too, not to mention Brazil.

Roy Hersh wrote:And in addition to the UK, quite a few other European countries received shipments in cask too, not to mention Brazil.

Has anyone have or had a Brazilian bottled VP?

Moses Botbol wrote:
Has anyone have or had a Brazilian bottled VP?

Nope