Newsletter #116 and the DR PORT Buying opPORTunity

[Roy Hersh]

I would like to wish everyone a belated Happy New Years and a HEALTHY one at that!

The New Year's Eve release of the newsletter took its toll on me, but I was very happy with how it turned out. It was wonderful to be able to include so many different facets, in terms of a pair of excellent guest articles, dozens of photos and tasting notes, announcement of 2024 tours and In Focus area too, not to mention the 2021 Vintage Port Forecast.

Additionally, for the very first time in many years, ALL recipients of the newsletter ... were able to access an end of year FTLOP Buying opPORTunity. This buying op included 8 great Ports by what has become my favorite white and wood-aged Port producer in the Douro Valley: DR Port. It is the place our tour guests clamor for us to go, the most. The prices were reasonable for what would otherwise have to go through an Importer, Distributor and a Retailer, so 3x markups, and these prices would never have been able to be competitively priced that way. And after all negotiations were done, only then was FREE shipping discussed for all that chose to buy in!

We are working with a great company VinConnect to get the wines from the producer into your hands with our newsletter recipients having a link built for us ... to a very simple platform page. It is backed by a team that is fantastic in response time and making things extremely user-friendly. I have had a lot of emails about this buying opportunity, but felt it would be easier to open up some dialogue in case you want to know more about the wines included, any difficulties you may be experiencing in deciding what to purchase, or any issues you encounter with the web-platform.

Any comments or questions, PLEASE feel free to ask. Thanks!

[Roy Hersh]

The recent buying op that was offered at the end of 2023, to ALL FTLOP'ers, set an all time record for volume of bottles sold and the highest total sales of all 23 previous buying ops. I am sure part of this was because DR was in the spotlight, but outside of buying winery direct, the prices and FREE shipping add up to some very significant savings. I was actually pretty amazed by the quantity of orders that were placed and then a large number of secondary orders that came later. That's never happened before. Thanks to those of you that took advantage of the sale!

[Mike J. W.]

I have been scouring the net for DR in the US to no avail, so I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip by. I would have bought more but the Mrs...

I am curious though Roy, why no 40 y.o. Tawny or White? Or is that next year's buying op?

[Glenn E.]

I have been scouring the net for DR in the US to no avail, so I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip by. I would have bought more but the Mrs...

I am curious though Roy, why no 40 y.o. Tawny or White? Or is that next year's buying op?

Sadly, DR no longer makes a 40 Year Old Tawny Port. With the introduction of the new 50 Year Old category, they have decided to skip the 40 and go straight to the 50. (I have not heard whether or not this is also true of the 40 Year Old White.)

While I lament this decision as a fan of their 40, I completely understand it from a business perspective. Their 40 was probably already very close to 50 years old, so with only minor changes to the contents they're now able to sell it for a retail price of ~$250 instead of ~$150. That's a no-brainer kind of decision.

There were already producers who only made a 30 or a 40 but not both. (E.g. Ramos Pinto didn't have a 40, and Noval didn't have a 30.) With the introduction of this new category I won't be at all surprised if many producers follow DR's lead... 10 to 20 is double the age, 20 to 30 is 1.5x age, and then 30 to 50 is 1.67x age. A 40 just doesn't fit nicely into an age progression anymore, and eliminating it allows a company to charge more for their 30 as well.

[Roy Hersh]

I used to love the DR 40 Tawny too. In fact, I will miss it.

Niepoort was another company that until recently, only had 10, 20, and 30 year Old Tawny Ports.

But times are changing and companies are evolving to take part in the growth cycle of the Special Category Ports, in Europe, No. America and frankly, globally.