For The Love Of Port

As I'm learning about Port, and I was born in 1963, an obvious milestone became apparent. I should buy a 1963 VP. I normally only spend up to £50 on a bottle, when its just me and myself, and no paticular occassion, but I thought it was Treat time. I found a bottle of Quinta Do Noval on the Web at Nickolls & Perks which after Vat and postage came to £100. Confirmation Emails, and a promise to be here for this weekend, and I had a Cohiba and a Comfy Chair all lined up. Needless to say, I got an Email today saying it was never in stock, and apologies.
So after a few muffled expletives, I started shearching for a new 63 target and my heads spinning. Can anyone point me in the direction of a quality 63 for around £100 to give me a good indication of this vintage. I know I cant afford the best. Do Noval was only being rated in the low 80's, but its a name I hadn't tried. and a 'specia'l vintage I hadn't tried.
As I look at a bottle of Marks & Spencers LBV, that I thought was only for guests who weren't that fussed, But will now be my evenings companion, Any thoughts?

Alan C wrote:Frustrations of being born in 63.

Alan -

How come ??? - That's NOT a frustration !!!
At least you have lots of Vintage Ports to choose from.
On my case (I was born in 1969) there's no VP available
You, at least, still have several options

best
Mário

p.s.: Good luck on your search.

Mario Ferreira wrote: On my case (I was born in 1969) there's no VP available

So, for 69 harvest years I stick with the Colheita Ports :idea:

See ?? - That was the solution I found for myself

MF

Alan,

Most 63's can be bought for less than £100, many for less than £50.

If you send me £40, I'll mail you one of my Offley's (Broadbent gave it 4*)

Tom

Alan,

Try being born in 1973...there ain't no Port for me....that is until Dirk decides to bottle that gem hiding in his cellar 8)

Alan,

As you may have guessed by now you will find little sympathy here for being born in 1963. I am a 1965 vintage, very hard to track down and prices are simply ridiculous given the relatively low quality.

As Tom says, you can find many 1963's for less than £100. Croft, Warre, Dow & Sandeman are all generally available and within your budget.

If you can stretch to another £30 or so get yourself a Graham's 63 - WOW

The best way to extend your knowledge and experience of 1963 is to hang out with Alex Bridgeman. Alex is also a 63 vintage and has lots and lots of them in his cellar 8)

Derek

Thanks Gentlemen,
So I'm getting the message I'm lucky to have a decent Vintage Birth Year? Fair enough, and in time I'm sure I'll agree, but as I've never tasted a drop of that vintage up to now, its difficult to rejoice!
Tom, if your serious, I will PM you, and will take you up on that marvelous offer.
If ever I hear a name or description I've not heard of, like Nacional 31, Quinta, Aguardente,etc, I'm off searching archives and Google to try to broaden my knowledge. If that doesn't work I post a question for you guys.In this case, I didn't know about Offley's. I didn't find much, but I did find this,
Any visitor to the Douro will be told of the intrepid Baron Forresteor, one time owner of Offley's. He is credited with mapping the upper regions of the Douro and produced a detailed record of all the landmarks down the river, only eventually to drown in one of the most dangerous rapids - not helped by the weight of gold he had just collected from his tenants.
Offley's older vintages from the 1960s and 1970s are well worth looking out for, though since then little Vintage Port has appeared under this name.
You may already know all of this, but its fascinating to me.
Cheers, Alan
P.S. Apologies for the atrocious spelling in the 1st Post, and I wasn't drunk at that stage! I also found this image.

Alan,

If you have not done so already you should look on http://www.wine-searcher.com - it is simply the best wine search engine on the planet - it's worth subscribing to the premium service ($20 with instant access) as your search will return many more hits than the basic search option.

Well done on the research. Those of us who attended the Harvest Trip with Roy and Mario in October were treated to a boat trip up the Douro and passed the spot where the Baron went down with his gold belt 8)

There is no need to ask Tom if he is serious. I can tell you he is. He is also a gentleman of the highest order and someone you can easily trust with your £40 :)

Derek

Derek,
thanks, I'll have a look at that site.
Its actually making me wish your team well against the Irish (where my ancestors are from), but dont worry, I'll sober up in the morning!
Alan.

Alan,

How much have you had to drink man - just to bring you back to your senses I will explain that the main probem I have with being born in 1965 is that I am unfortunate enough to be able to say that England have won the World Cup in my lifetime - I just wish the BBC would stop going on about it after all this time :x



Please rest well tonight with the comforting knowledge that I hope you get absolutely thrashed by our French cousins on Sunday

Derek

Alan

Noval might not be your best introduction to the 1963 vintage (unless you are going Nacional which would be a whole other story). I have a couple of bottles of this and recently posted a note here....nice and drinkable, but not something to get you wowed about 1963.

I have not had that big a selection of 63's, but as someone said above, if you can spring for the Grahams you would be in for a treat. For a similar or maybe even lower price than the Noval you might try either Croft or Sandemans, both of which, when stored well, may be superior to the Noval at this point in time (to my taste anyways).

Of course I need to try another Noval to make sure.....

On another note, curse you Brits! The cheapest I have seen a 63 Grahams for in the past couple of years here in the US is $269 US! I suspect that Alex has conered the market much like the Hunt brothers cornered the market in silver back when I was a teen. It does not matter that unlike the Hunt's Alex does not intend to sell at inflated prices but rather will consume it all himself!

I need to work on my EFRP plan (Equitable and Fair Redistribution of Port, sort of like a NAFTA thing except involving airborne divisions and refegeriated cargo ships) some more

Jay

Jay,

I can assure you that Alex doesn't have all the Graham's 63

The price you quote isn't far away from what we would pay here, assuming your $269 includes tax. wine-searcher.com is currently showing 2 merchants with 1 bottle each at around £130 - which is as close to $269 as you could be.

Auction prices would obviously be less than this.

Derek

Another '63 baby. Welcome to the club, there are at least three of us now, all of us 'Al'. Let's call the club "The club for people whose name begins with 'Al', were born in 1963 and like Vintage Port", that should sort the wheat from the chaff.

I have a lone bottle of 1963 Warre's which needs an excuse to be opened. I will happily get some others having tried the Graham's, Taylor, Fonseca and Sandeman - all excellent.

Alex,

Could you call the club "The club for people whose name begins with 'Al', were born in 1963, and like Vintage Port, and their friend Derek who has a few 1963's in his cellar" ?

Derek

Given the vintage and price mentioned: in a word, Dow

Consider yourself luck indeed! I am a '57

Derek Turnbull wrote:Alex,

Could you call the club "The club for people whose name begins with 'Al', were born in 1963, and like Vintage Port, and their friend Derek who has a few 1963's in his cellar" ?

Derek

Special dispensation for freinds called Derek providing they turn up to club events with a bottle of 1963 VP for all other members - yes.

I'm coming into this thread a bit late, but I want to express my sympathy for Alan

It is a terrible thing to be born in 1963. No region of the world produced any wines of decent quality except for some small part of Northern Portugal. I tried a '63 Baron Pichon a few years ago and it was (almost) undrinkable.

So us poor members of the club of "People called Al who were born in 1963 and like Vintage Port and have a friend called Derek who wasn't born in 1963 but has some 1963 Port in his cellar" have to make do with the occasional sip of wine from just one single river valley on the Iberian peninsula .... and to make matters worse, its not even the whole of the river valley because some bloke nearly 300 years ago decided you could only make wine in parts of that river valley.

C'mon, I ask you! Surely after nearly 250 years people could have been allowed to make decent wine in 1963 from anywhere the weather was good.

Sadly, you've missed the recent auction by Christies of the stocks of Morgan port emptied out of the cellars in Portugal by Taylor's after their recent acquisition of the name. Amongst the wines were some cases of Morgan 1963. Like the Noval (and the Offley), these are not great examples of 1963 but make for very pleasant drinking. I don't know what they sold for but it was going for around £30-35 a bottle for a case of 12 in the auction before Christmas. Its worth keeping an eye on winesearcher to see if these turn up at wine merchants in a month or so.

But your best bet is probably to take Tom up on his offer and share in his uncanny ability to unearth good port at keen prices.

And a bit more information about Offley as a shipper. It was founded in 1737 and became part of the Sandeman Group in 1962 and part of Martini & Rossi in 1983 (this from a book published in 1990 so it could well be somewhere else by now). Offley's main markets are Portugal and Italy and they sell around 600,000 per year. The main source of grapes for their Vintage Port is the Quinta do Boa Vista close to Pinhao. (The source of this information is a book called Vintage Port by James Suckling. Although out of date now, its a great read on port and turns up on ebay and in second hand bookshops from time to time.)

Alex

Born in 1962 , no VP's in sight

BTW , a Graham's '63 in Montréal goes for $ 505.00 / 750ml
Taylor '' '' $ 878.00 / 750ml

Fear not !! , a port enthousiast always finds a his Vintage

tanker,

You could celebrate your birthday with a Quinta do Noval nacional 1962 at only $900 a bottle :?

Derek