Buying older vintage port from retail stores

[Ivan P]

Hi all,
Is there a general consensus on whether buying older VP from retailers is a good thing or not? Doing a quick search on winesearcher shows that plenty of stores still have vintage ports dating back to early 2000s and in some instances even before that, and at very good prices too. Just this past weekend, I saw 1985 Graham's VP at a local supermarket for $110 per bottle. Some of the bottles were standing up but the rest were laying down behind a glass case but still exposed to store light and of course all were at room temp ...
There is probably no way of knowing how long the other stores I mentioned had those bottles but more importantly, how they were stored (horizontally or standing up, at what temperature, in light or not etc...). Would you guys recommend or buy port yourself at such locations? If not, how do you look for and buy vintage port for yourself?
Thanks!

[Glenn E.]

I suspect the general consensus would be something along the lines of "buyer beware!" It will depend on the store and how long they've owned the bottle.

If you have a local store that you know and trust, then buying from them should pose no problems. I've had great experiences with internet stores as well, but the first time buying from each one that I've used has always felt risky. Almost all of my Vintage Port has been ordered over the internet, and I've yet to experience a bad bottle that couldn't just be attributed to normal bottle variation. I've had internet stores replace or refund bottles for me that turned out to be wrong, as most of them want to protect their reputations.

Auctions, on the other hand, are less reliable in my experience. You never know who owned the bottle previously, so how did they treat it? What's your recourse if you get a bad bottle? The auction house may have some information about the bottle's history, but they're always going to present it in the best possible light so I'm not sure their information is all that trustworthy.

That said, Port is a very sturdy wine - much more so than your typical red wine - so some small amount of mishandling won't affect it at all. Bottles can stand up for a couple of months without issues, and can even handle room temp for a very long time without trouble. Temperature variation seems to be more important than the exact temperature, so a bottle "stored" at a constant 68 degrees for a year might actually be in better shape than one that experienced temperature fluctuations between 55 and 68 for that same year.

[Ivan P]

Glenn,
Thank you for your reply. Could you share a few internet sources that you personally trust and had good experience with?

[Eric Menchen]

I pretty much agree with Glenn. One store might have some bottles that were kept at room temp and upright, whereas plenty of others have bottles that were kept in a dark warehouse in cases on their side, and a few of those might even have had temperature control. For post-2000 VPs, I'd like to think that the odds are in your favor, but it is still all a gamble. Good stores? K&L, Cabrini, Gary's, BPW, WinEx, are on my short list. After that, maybe Benchmark, European Wine Resource, Flickinger, Hi-Time, JJBuckley, Knightsbridge, Solano Cellars, TCWC, Wine Library, and Zachy's.

I might have a more favorable opinion that Glenn on auction sources for older VPs. Yes, you have better recourse if you get a bad bottle at a store vs. an auction. But what are the odds of getting a good or great single bottle of 1977 VP from either? I've bought some beautiful bottles at auction, and some that were not. Some bottles at auction were properly stored for years and years. Now where is the retail store getting their 1977 VP? They are pretty much not getting them from the lodges in VndG, but the same places as the auction houses. Some might be exercising better scrutiny (which itself varies among the auction houses), some not so much.

[Ivan P]

Thank you, Eric!
Wow, that's a very nice list. I wasn't aware of any of those stores.
I've noticed that a few of those stores had VP from the 1970s and 1980s for less than $200 a bottle. That is just slightly more than VP that was just released... Is there a reason for that? I thought that port that was aged for 30+ years should cost considerably more than those that were just bottled or were aged only for a few years... Am I missing something here?

[Moses Botbol]

If you are buying from a retail store in person, ask if they have any additional bottles in their storage.

[Andy Velebil]

Three things;

1- A reputable wine shop is generally temperature controlled to a degree.

2- Many retailers buy older vintages at auction and then resell them. Or they get them gray market overseas and import them themselves. These bottles are more of a gamble. However, unless the store tells you where they got it you probably won't ever know where it really came from. Of course there could be clues such as an auction house sticker on it, an importer that is not the one in that region/country. And for anything really old, it would be very rare they had it in their shop for 30+ years so the odds are it came from an outside source or late released (see #3 below).

3- Until recent declarations which were very small, there could have been older stocks re-released at a later time and the retailer is in possession of them only a very short time. Often times the labels are different a decade or two later for these late released bottles. So that is one other way to tell.

[John M.]

From Eric: Good stores? K&L, Cabrini, Gary's, BPW, WinEx, are on my short list. After that, maybe Benchmark, European Wine Resource, Flickinger, Hi-Time, JJBuckley, Knightsbridge, Solano Cellars, TCWC, Wine Library, and Zachy's.

Being from NJ I've been to several Gary's and Wine Library...the latter keeps there older ports in a walk in temperature controlled room. FWIW a fair number of wine stores in the Hudson Valley (Poughkeepsie-Fishkill-Newburgh NY area) also have walk in wine cellars.

[Glenn E.]

Eric already mentioned most of the ones that I've used. Rare Wine Co is expensive, but very trustworthy. I've used a variety of California retailers because they're just shipping up the coast, so UPS Ground turns into 2-day shipping for me.

[Ivan P]

Thanks, everyone!
I went back to my local store and talked to the person in charge of bringing in the VP. He told me he gets them from his distributor and usually it's just one-two bottles at a time. I noticed that he had two more vintage ports this time in addition to the last time I visited so it looks like if I stop there often enough I could see something interesting. Yesterday he had Warre's VP from 1980, 1983 and 1985...

[Eric Menchen]

Yesterday he had Warre's VP from 1980...

That's a hard find in the US, and an excellent VP IMHO. Your mileage and individual bottles may vary.

[Moses Botbol]

Thanks, everyone!
I went back to my local store and talked to the person in charge of bringing in the VP. He told me he gets them from his distributor and usually it's just one-two bottles at a time. I noticed that he had two more vintage ports this time in addition to the last time I visited so it looks like if I stop there often enough I could see something interesting. Yesterday he had Warre's VP from 1980, 1983 and 1985...

The local distributors around me are also sitting on cases of VP's from the 80's in perfect condition. They want more than I want to pay and is probably the reason they've had them so long.

[Ivan P]

Thanks, everyone!
I went back to my local store and talked to the person in charge of bringing in the VP. He told me he gets them from his distributor and usually it's just one-two bottles at a time. I noticed that he had two more vintage ports this time in addition to the last time I visited so it looks like if I stop there often enough I could see something interesting. Yesterday he had Warre's VP from 1980, 1983 and 1985...

The local distributors around me are also sitting on cases of VP's from the 80's in perfect condition. They want more than I want to pay and is probably the reason they've had them so long.

My store has a very "interesting" price policy... So far, every VP bottle older than 20 years was marked at $139.99 regardless of the house name or vintage year ...

[Moses Botbol]

My store has a very "interesting" price policy... So far, every VP bottle older than 20 years was marked at $139.99 regardless of the house name or vintage year ...

That could be in your favor if they have '70 - '85 Fonseca.

[Eric Menchen]

My store has a very "interesting" price policy... So far, every VP bottle older than 20 years was marked at $139.99 regardless of the house name or vintage year ...

That could be in your favor if they have '70 - '85 Fonseca.

'70 Fonseca yes. But '85 can be found at a good number of places for under $100.

[Moses Botbol]

My store has a very "interesting" price policy... So far, every VP bottle older than 20 years was marked at $139.99 regardless of the house name or vintage year ...

That could be in your favor if they have '70 - '85 Fonseca.

'70 Fonseca yes. But '85 can be found at a good number of places for under $100.

Any bottle of '85 Fonseca under $100 should be purchased ASAP. Give away for what it is.

[Ivan P]

Yesterday he had Warre's VP from 1980...

That's a hard find in the US, and an excellent VP IMHO. Your mileage and individual bottles may vary.

Wasn't '85 a better year than '80 and '83?

[Eric Menchen]

Wasn't '85 a better year than '80 and '83?

In my experience:
Fonseca, yes '85 is the better year
Graham and Smith Woodhouse, toss up between '83 and '85, and depends on the bottle
Dow and Warres, '80 is the best

[Glenn E.]

Wasn't '85 a better year than '80 and '83?

As Eric pointed out, it depends on the producer. But if you want to talk generalities...

I find that '85 produced a handful of truly outstanding Ports, even fewer exceptional Ports, a decent number of very good Ports, and then quite a lot of just good and lower Ports.

I find that '83 did not produce any truly outstanding Ports, but produced more exceptional Ports than '85. IMO the "rest" also trended higher in quality than the "rest" did in '85, but not by a lot. So overall, I rate '83 higher as a vintage than '85, though '85 certainly has a handful of better Ports than anything found in '83.

I find that '80 had a couple of truly outstanding Ports and not much else. We could quibble about a couple that could possibly be called exceptional, but for the most part '80 is just good Port.

So... it's complicated when you're talking about a vintage as a whole. Do you judge the vintage based on the best it produced, or on the overall average across all producers?

[Ivan P]

So... it's complicated when you're talking about a vintage as a whole. Do you judge the vintage based on the best it produced, or on the overall average across all producers?

Glenn, thanks for the explanation. I learned something new today!