Will be going to the UK this summer (arriving at Heathrow) for the first time in 10 years and would like to know what are the best places to buy VP between Heathrow and the Orkneys (I plan to spend most of my time in Scotland ). I would like to avoid central London if possible...
- If any of you have bottles that are taking too much space, I'll gladly buy them instead of going to the store...
- My dates are July 4th to July 23rd and travel will be really flexible, so if anyone is around, I would gladly bring an overpriced bottle from Canada to share. It would certainly be nice to meet other people from this board.
If you are going to avoid central London, then I cannot recommend Berry Bros. & Rudd which is the greatest wine shop I have ever been in. Awesome for Port too! Steve, I'd imagine that we'll have folks come along to answer this as we have plenty of Brits reading and posting here.
If you travel by rail, you can engineer a route whereby the train will stop within walking distance of my cellar - I'm sure I can find some excess stock to tempt you with..!
Alternatively, if you take the train from Heathrow to Stansted, and fly from there, you will only be a 15min cab ride away.
uncle tom wrote:How do you plan to get to Scotland?
Looking for anything in particular?
Tom
Hi Tom,
I will have a car (looking forward to driving a stick on the wrong side of the road ), so getting around won't be an issue. Looking for 63-66-70-77 VPs. I can't bring back much - we have a 2 bottle limit in theory. So probably 3-4 bottles, for 250-300 pounds max total.
If it works for you, I could drop by on the front-end (Jul 4th) or backend (Jul 21-22nd) of my trip. Dinner or lunch would be great if you can manage it, I can bring the maple syrup, but not the peanut butter...
You have been fortunate to hook up with Tom. He lives in a great part of the country, is a really nice guy and knows a thing or two about Port, as well. Besides, if you're lucky some of the other serious Port enthusiasts might be convinced to fortify you both at an offline event.
Until it is my turn to fly into Canada with wine, (1-2x per year) I try to forget that there is another place on this globe with more ridiculously restrictive wine shipping and importation laws than America. It's hard to believe sometimes.
Have a great trip. BTW, aren't each of you allowed two bottles? That would be four. If I am not mistaken, specifically flying into your area ... can't you bring in a case and just pay the "stupid" duty on 8 of the bottles? Since all the Ports you are looking at must cost 20-30% of what you'd pay in Montreal, it might pay to think this through carefully.
The last time I checked, US customs law allowed for 1 liter per person, unless your trip includes a US territory (such as St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands) in which case you are allowed an additional 4 liters per person provided the additional quantity is purchased in the US territory.
My experience, though, is that unless you're bringing in a fairly large quantity the customs agent will probably just wave you through. Make sure you declare it and that you're upfront about it and you shouldn't have any trouble with 2 bottles per person. I brought back 2 bottles and 2 half bottles of assorted alcohol on one of my trips to Dublin and they didn't care.
I've brought back just over 1 case of wine with no problems. Just declare it and you should have no issues. Even if you do get charged duty, here is the rates...quite cheap for wine.
Duty is generally 3% of value and the IRS excise tax is generally between 21-31cents per 750ml bottle of wine, 67 cents/champaigne, and $2.14/ hard liquor.
I like this quote
There is no federal limit on the amount of alcohol a traveler may import into the U.S. for personal use, however, large quantities might raise the suspicion.....
There is no federal limit on the amount of alcohol a traveler may import into the U.S. for personal use, however, large quantities might raise the suspicion.....
We have this “personal consumption” issue in the UK, too, where people visit France (on what is politely termed a “booze cruise”) to stock up with wine and avoid paying the considerably higher Duty rates on alcohol in the UK. Due to some mad piece of reasoning by the European Court of Justice, we can bring it back in without paying UK Duty, as long as it is for “personal consumption”. The Customs officers have exactly the same problem as your federal officers: they find it pretty hard to work out who has hired a van and bought their year’s supply of alcohol and who has hired a van and has bought a load of alcohol that they are going to use to stock their business!
I’m going to begin by answering a different question from the one you asked. Since you have a car … if you are within reach of Ayr, on the coast to the south-west of Glasgow, a port lover should definitely visit Whigham’s. This shop has a bonded cellar underneath it which was purpose-built in 1766 … shortly before Robert Burns became the local exciseman. It is still a working wine cellar, storing the customers’ private reserves and – since the shop used to import port in pipes and bottle it in the cellar – it has several largish (few hundred bottles maybe) stacks of pre-1973 port, unlabelled, gathering dust and waiting for collection (and a decrepit cork flogger).
Unfortunately, although you can arrange to be shown around the cellar, I don’t think you can buy any of those bottles: they all belong to Whigham’s customers. When those customers want to retrieve their port, the bottles will be labelled … and excise duty and tax will be charged.
As a place to buy port, Whigham’s is a good ordinary wine merchant. It is owned by Corney & Barrow – one of the old-established London wine merchants that competes with Berrys’ – nowadays, and most of its good port will be stored in the group’s central temperature-controlled cellars, from which anything you wish to order can be obtained at a couple of days’ notice. But, above ground, it isn’t an Aladdin’s cave.
Somewhere that Aladdin might enjoy more (I finally get around to answering your question) is Berrys’ Basingstoke shop, which is about half an hour’s drive from Heathrow. Once again, the serious stock is in temperature-controlled cellars, available at a couple of days’ notice (even though the shop and the cellars are in the same building – such is the bureaucracy surrounding a bonded warehouse). But the Basingstoke shop specializes in bin ends, and few organizations have bin ends like Berrys’ (1996 Mouton Rothschild anyone?).
I happened to be there earlier to-day (my first visit this week) and their stock comprised
1963 Warre
1967 Cockburn
1978 Taylor Quinta de Vargellas
1985 Smith Woodhouse
1994 Fonseca, Martinez, Ramos Pinto, and Taylor
1997 Warre in magnums and Taylor
1998 Quinta do Vesuvio
2000 Quinta de la Rosa and Quinta do Vesuvio
It will be different in July. (Well, they may have some of the 1967 Cockburn left. This is a special bottling, labelled “Joanna’s Port”, of a pipe of port that Joanna’s godfather bought for her when she was born. I don’t know how Berrys’ came to buy it – maybe Joanna is teetotal.)
The Basingstoke shop is modern and doesn’t have anything of the ambience of Whigham’s, let alone of Berrys’ London shop in St James’s. So a train journey into London would still be good; under no circumstances try to drive there.
By the way, if you are new to driving in the UK, consider hiring an automatic shift car. I have never had any trouble driving on the right-hand side of the road, but I have many times tried to change gear with the door handle.
Disclaimer: I am an occasional customer of Whigham’s and far too frequent a customer of Berrys.
Later,
Dr Owl
----------------------------
John Owlett, Southampton, UK
Thanks a lot for the info. I will definitely look into this... I've been to UK and Ireland before and drove around without too much problem, although shifting with the left hand is probably the worst part. Actually, I still drive a stick here. I will be officially old when I have an automatic and I take my vacations on the beach in winter
Regarding duty, I have brought more than allowed in the past and it is fairly straightforward. If memory is correct, it was in the 30% range (sales tax + liquor tax). Would probably still be advantageous for most high end ports coming back from the UK, but I have limited cellar space, so 3-4 bottles will be more than good enough.
If you have time it is certainly worth a trip into London to see Berry Brothers.
Given what you plan to spend and the number of bottles you are planning to buy I would recommend that you do the buying from Uncle Tom and visit wine merchants just for interest value.
Be sure to let us know when you finalise your plans in case there are any Off-lines planned. There is one planned for 11th July in London but that probably isn't convenient for you if you plan to be 4-500 miles further north at that time.
Keep me posted with your plans - I'm not overstocked on '66 & '77, but I've got about a hundred '63's downstairs (one less in a few minutes time.. ) and twice as many '70's - so I can certainly sort you some goodies.
Tom
PS Don't tempt me with maple syrup - I'm trying to lose weight!
Plans are pretty much set, I arrive Friday July 4th early in the morning and leave Wednesday the 23rd in the afternoon. Between that, there are no plans :) I expect to spend the bulk of my time in the great outdoors up North in Scotland, but it will depend on the weather, midges and life in general... I always make it a plan to have no plans on vacation.
So just send me a PM with your coordinates and let me know if you prefer the earlier or the later dates and I will adapt with great pleasure.
I'm back and survived 3 weeks of driving on the wrong side of the road...
Just wanted to say a big thanks to Uncle Tom for welcoming me into his lair and to let him know that I'm up for adoption if he is looking for a nice kid to push his wheelchair around when he's old Let's just say that the average age of my port collection has increased a bit after my visit.
It seems that he is enough of a star in England to even a pub named after him. No port in there, but very nice warm and flat English beers...
Many years ago, I had to make a trip down to Wincanton on business, and a friend asked me if I'd pick him up a couple of gallons of the authentic, cloudy, product.
I duly obliged, and placed a couple of gallon containers in the back of my car.
It was a very hot day, and I was unaware that fresh real cider continues to ferment a little. The drive home took three hours, and just before I arrived at his house, I heard a muffled explosion..
uncle tom wrote:
It was a very hot day, and I was unaware that fresh real cider continues to ferment a little. The drive home took three hours, and just before I arrived at his house, I heard a muffled explosion..
..I never did get the smell out of that car...
Tom
Opps, now thats funny. I do hope it at least smelled like a wine cellar after.
). I would like to avoid central London if possible...
It would certainly be nice to meet other people from this board. 
) and twice as many '70's - so I can certainly sort you some goodies.
