For The Love Of Port

Dear everyone,

I am one of the “lurkers” who has just signed up for an account, as requested in the other forum, although, I’m afraid, it is in order to ask a question! Being the only Port drinker in the family, I’ve been passed on a decanter that has been in the family for some time. What makes me curious, though, is its size; it is somewhat on the small size to take a standard 750ml bottle. I think about 500-600ml would be enough to fill it to the brim and I generally assumed that only the body of the decanter would be filled and not the neck. I’ve put up a rather bad picture here.

Not knowing anything about decanters, I was therefore wondering why this was. Is this decanter intended for something other than Port? Was there more sediment in bottles of Port, historically, so that more volume would be lost in decanting? Or did serving practices differ (so only part a bottle would be decanted at one time or it would be decanted into different decanters). I assume that bottle sizes have remained fairly constant.

Best wishes,

Jacob

Jacob,

Welcome to FTLOP, its great to have you come out of the lurker status. There is a great group of people here and glad you are joining them.

As for the decanter, I must say it is very beautiful. I know one poster here that collects them, so hopefully he may be able to chime in and give some background on it. But, I would guess it was used for a spirit, say Bourbon, Whiskey, or something else. It is a bit small for a standard wine bottle, but would do great for a 1/2 bottle. So i would guess it was not intended for wine to be decanted into it.

As for the other part of your question; Vintage Ports are made basically the same way as they have been for centuries, so sediment and loss of volume don't really come into play. As they are the same now has they always have been.

Thanks for your reply. Half bottles sound like a way to go, although I don’t see them around very often. I was also thinking that if a glass or two gets “tasted” at decanting time, then the rest will probably fit in…

I initially thought that it might have been for a Whiskey or another spirit but based on some unfounded prejudiced, I’d always assumed that spirit decanters were rectangular. I think another trawl of the internet/library is required!

Most of "port" decanters I've seen, especially from 19th century are more spherical or pineapple shaped. I am not taking away from your decanter, just an observation. Your decanter reminds me of a spirit decanter than port. I've seen them used for Vodka and Gin.

JacobH wrote:
I initially thought that it might have been for a Whiskey or another spirit but based on some unfounded prejudiced, I’d always assumed that spirit decanters were rectangular. I think another trawl of the internet/library is required!

Whiskey are rectangular or square.

Jacob

Welcome to the forum - and with a question that we can get our teeth into.

First off, I should say that I am not a decanter expert so the following comments are based mainly on educated guesswork.

To my unexpert eye, your decanter looks very old. The neck is wonky and the general workmanship - while skilled - looks to be uneven. This brought to my mind another suggestion (other than Andy's suggestion that it was a decanter for a half-bottle or perhas a 50 cl imp sized bottle). 3-400 years ago, old houses run by the middle and upper classes in England would buy their wine by the barrel as bottles were rare and expensive. These barrels would be stored in the cellars of the house and when wine was required it would be decanted by the house staff either in to one of the bottles that the house owned or into a decanter. Perhaps your decanter was once used in such a way.

Another observation I would make is that I own a very small number of port bottles which are pint sized and two which are 70 cl bottles rather than the standard 75 cl size.

Alex

Jacob,

I hope this is the first of many great posts! Good to have you in our midst and I look forward to reading your thoughts and questions about Port as time goes by.

To your question: there is actually a lot more sediment in Vintage Port than any other wine type that I am familiar with. Whether this has to do with the shorter time of the fermentation or the lack of fining/filtration ... I am not sure. But once you get into drinking older bottles (you may already for all I know : ) there is no question that you can find a full ounce or two of sediment.

Welcome aboard and keep on visiting and sharing with us!

Al B. wrote:To my unexpert eye, your decanter looks very old. The neck is wonky and the general workmanship - while skilled - looks to be uneven.

It is funny that Alex mentions this. My first thought when viewing the picture was "hand-made." Not hand-made in a bad way, but in an old-fashioned, no-two-pieces-of-art (whether it is glass or crystal) come-out-exactly-the-same, charming type of way.

Do you mind sharing the story of the history of this decanter, if you know anything further about it?

And lastly, welcome to FTLOP. As a couple of others have mentioned, here's hoping we here from you again, and often!

Todd

Thanks to everyone for their replies. In reply to Todd’s question— I’m afraid there isn’t very much in way of family history of this decanter— the most I know is that it was owned by my great grandparents (which would, I suppose, date it from at least the late Victorian period) and has been passed down, in the way of these things. That part of my family had been fairly sedentary for quite some time (and I suppose quite middle-class) so perhaps Alex’s suggestion of being used to extract wine a barrel in the cellar might be a possibility, if the decanter is a bit older than I thought. Of course, knowing how these stories build up in families, I wouldn’t be surprised if, as Moses suggests, it never saw any Port until this week and was used for something else entirely!

Roy, I was particularly wondering what the situation was like, historically, with regards to filtration? I think I am right in saying that the vast majority of Port that is drunk today is filtered and so only relatively few bottles are likely to contain a large of sediment. Of course, these are also the bottles that enthusiasts most desire! If I were to be designing a decanter today, I think I would work on the principle that it would need to hold a full 750ml, but if the majority of Port drunk 100 years ago was unfiltered and therefore could contain a lot of sediment then perhaps it would have been reasonable to make ones with smaller capacity? Again, I am just speculating here!

I suppose even today there is still some variation in bottle sizes. Perhaps in 50 years time people will be collecting those 500ml bottles of Warre’s Optima as a novelty…

Anyway, thank you to everyone for being so welcoming—I certainly haven’t experienced such a friendly reception on a forum for a long time!

-Jacob

Interestingly, I was in John Lewis today (a UK department store that tends to stock slightly more expensive products) and noticed a decanter for sale that was 70cl in capacity. It was described as a "liqueur decanter".

Alex