For The Love Of Port

Last year some Petrus was stolen from a local hotel, and on the news they reported that there was no way to uniquely identify the bottles. This struck me as odd, and I was wondering if it was true or just misinformation put out in hopes that someone would try to carelessly sell them and be caught doing so. This got me thinking about my own wines. Certainly just about all my Port has selo numbers, and I've seen a lot of serial number type things on Spanish and Italian bottles in my collection.

Does anyone record their selo numbers? Do you think if you had them, it might help in case of theft? Do you think auction houses ever look at the numbers to check for theft, or to verify authenticity?

I started to do it when I started using CellarTracker, but the effort fell by the wayside as I ordered more and more Port. It was just too time consuming to record each Selo as I received the bottles, and then more importantly to record each Selo as I consumed the bottles.

I'm not sure it would be the greatest way to track a stolen bottle, either, as the Selo could just be torn off.

Ever get double selo's? Happen to me last week on a 2005 Dao magnum.

Moses Botbol wrote:Ever get double selo's? Happen to me last week on a 2005 Dao magnum.

Yes twice. I still have one floating around my house somewhere.

Glenn E. wrote:I'm not sure it would be the greatest way to track a stolen bottle, either, as the Selo could just be torn off.

True that, but wouldn't you think that would lower the value, or itself raise suspicion?

The day I start to track my Selo numbers, I will ask my dog to shoot me and put me out of my misery. Ok, so I don't own a dog. But if I did ...

As to the question....heck no, I can barely keep CellarTracker up to date let alone input Selo numbers.

As funny as when I used to see friends, including Eric LeVine keeping track of AP number (Amtliche Prüfnummer quality control number) of German Rieslings.

German AP numbers are a bit different. Each number refers not to a particular bottle, but to a particular lot of wine commercially released. And given the Teutonic love of order, the numbers actually make some sense. Each number includes the code for the region of Germany, the particular producer's code, the date the wine was submitted, and then the lot number. One can look up the number and know which producer and year of each wine, and the lot number. Since there may be different lots of a particular Spatlese or Auslese, the information can be valuable. For instance there may be an auction lot, or a gold capsule lot. Since the law did away with terms like feine Auslese, feinste Auslese (fine and finest), one can know exactly which wine is which.

Yes, I know. I spent quite a few years in a German/Alsatian Riesling tasting group that met in a local Thai restaurant once a month on a Sunday afternoon and usually left many many hours later. 8-10 people with typically 25 bottles. Then again, some were 375's ... at least most of the BA/TBA and Eisweins were. Miss those good old days. Darn restaurant had to close.

Anyway, I understand the value of AP numbers, but keeping track of every one of them is a bit over the top, but hey, like the German's themselves, precision counts.