For The Love Of Port

Hi all,

I've been given four different bottles of port by a relative who's having a clear out. I'm not sure if I should keep them, open and enjoy them (assuming they're drinkable) or look to sell them if they're worth something. The bottle are labelled as follows:

Sandeman 20 years old, bottled in 1981 Tawny Port
Burmester Reserva L. D. Velhissimo
Burmester Duque Special Reserve Half Dry Tawny
Burmester Vintage Character Port Sweet Ruby

There aren't any dates on the Burmester's but two of them have stamps on the back: L2074 & L2216, not sure if that's relevant?

Any advice/thoughts would be most welcome

You should enjoy those. The 20 year old runs ~$50 at retail, but that isn't a bottle meant to be aged, so the 1981 bottling date would be troubling for a resale. We can debate whether a tawny like that can improve with age, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't really go up in value. The Vintage Character bottle is intriguing to me and probably some others around here, but it and the other bottles are probably worth even less than the 20 year old.

I agree with Eric - those are all more "curiosity" types of bottles rather than "I found a pristine '53 Corvette under a tarp in my barn!" types of bottles.

They will all almost certainly be drinkable, though they may not be all that great. They're certainly worth opening with friends just for the fun of it, and might even bottles around which you could form a theme for a tasting.

The one possible exception is the Burmester Reserva L.D. Velhissimo. I can't find much information on that bottle, and the term "Velhissimo" implies that it is very old. So it is possible that that bottle is a very old tawny Port which could be somewhat valuable. Does it look like this?
I found several listings for bottles like these for sale in both Germany and Italy (on Ebay in both cases) for 80 Euros. One of the listings appeared to claim that it is a 1904 Reserve Tawny, but didn't have any other information so I doubt the claim. Another that looked identical claimed it was a 2010 Reserve Tawny, but the label on that bottle was clearly older than 4 years so I doubt that claim as well. So... who knows? Either way, at 80 Euros the 1904 claim seems highly suspect.

Glenn E. wrote:The one possible exception is the Burmester Reserva L.D. Velhissimo. I can't find much information on that bottle, and the term "Velhissimo" implies that it is very old. So it is possible that that bottle is a very old tawny Port which could be somewhat valuable.

Of course then we also get back into the realm of tawny that's been in the bottle for a long time.

Thanks for the replies they have been most helpful. The label on the Burmester Velhissimo is identical to the one you posted. I understand these bottles were a gift given annually to my father by an agent of the company he used to work for who lived in Portugal. The Velhissimo was presented to him in 1990 apparently and the others in the 3 preceding years to that.

You're not going to get much for the bottles to warrant the hassle of selling and it's a roll of the dice whether they'll be anything just simple port. I'd just drink them.