Newbie "collector-wannabe" ISO advice . . .

[Brad A.]

Hello Community,

I discovered the board this past weekend and seem to be spending an inordinate amount of my free time here trying to become "educated", so I think I'm starting to feel the effects of the early stages of the bug . . . Well, hopefully it's that and not N1H1!

I have a couple of issues that I hope some of you can give me some advice on.

I live in Oklahoma, which is a wonderful place other than it being one of the states that you can't ship wine into. Are there ways around this, short of having things shipped to a friend out of state? Are there sources that will do this anyway in violation of the law (which really doesn't make much sense to me). What about buying at auction?

I spoke to my buddy who's in charge of the wine department (which is very large) at the best local store in town and he said that I can't just order something and have it shipped to them unfortunately. I sent him my wish list anyway to see what he might be able to find via his sources, so we'll see what that might produce.

I also know the owners a local winery very well if that might present a possibility of acquiring VP's and remain within the laws here.

Given that I'm just getting into this it seems to make sense to start by trying to find 375's for a few reasons. Most of the time it would just be me drinking, with the wife joining me on occasion. I'm sure that I already have something in common with many here too in that I have very limited storage space and I can tell that I'm not going to have the investment dollars I'd like to have at my disposal to put into this endeavor. It appears on the surface to make sense, but how difficult is it to find VP in 375's?

Please post or message me if you have advice and thanks for helping out a newbie.

Brad

[Glenn E.]

Hi Brad, welcome to !

I always knew Oklahoma was a bad place. (I grew up in Nebraska in the 70's and 80's... better dead than Sooner red!) But I'll let it slide since you like Port.

Sadly, your state laws are probably going to be a huge PITA for you. Hopefully you live close enough to a state border that you can ship to a friend and pick the bottles up there, because otherwise your options are probably pretty limited. The friend at the wine store could be your best option, but he will probably be constrained by what he has available through his authorized distributors. That's liable to be limited to fairly recent releases.

As far as what to buy when you have limited storage... personally, I'd avoid most Vintage Port. That may sound like insanity, but there's a method to my madness. Vintage Port needs to be stored for - in most cases - a very long time. Not just years, but decades. If you only have a 30-50 bottle wine fridge like I had when I started, that doesn't give you enough space to really buy much to lay down.

There are exceptions, of course. Anything that's reasonably ready to drink right now would be a good purchase. You'll get differing opinions on when a good Vintage Port is mature, but I think most people will agree that it takes at least 20 years. I personally think it takes more like 30-40. So you could buy some 1970s or 1977s or maybe even some 1985s and just plan to drink them instead of keep them.

That doesn't mean that you can't buy 2003s or 2007s. Some people - myself included - enjoy very young Vintage Ports also. But with limited space I wouldn't plan on keeping anything very long... you just don't have space for it.

Which brings me to my favorite type of Port - Colheitas and Tawnies with an indication of age. These are meant to be ready to consume as soon as they are bottled, so a small wine fridge is fine for storage. You just buy new bottles as you need them and use the wine fridge to keep them cool. Another advantage of these Ports is that they remain fresh after the bottle is opened far longer than Vintage Ports. You'll get some differences of opinion, but most people will agree that they're fine for at least a week. If you drink a glass or two a night that's about all the longer a bottle will last anyway, right? But they'll last much longer if you keep the bottle in your refrigerator - up to a month depending on the exact bottle you're storing.

As far as bottle size goes, I don't personally buy many halves (375 ml). I keep a couple of bottles on hand of nice Ruby Reserves like Graham's Six Grapes or Broadbent's Auction Reserve, but that's about it. I can usually finish off a 750 ml bottle myself before anything goes bad.

[Roy Hersh]

Hey Brad,

I have the perfect solution to all of your Port problems in Oklahoma: MOVE.

OK, we enjoy having these types of posts because as you've seen from Glenn, it allows us to share past experience and save you from making the same mistakes as others.

Glenn made some very sound recommendations and here are a few other suggestions:

a. Given that you mentioned buying on a budget, consider LBV Ports, which are vintage dated and aged in wood for 4-6 years, but often times they remain UNFILTERED (almost all Portuguese brands do this and some of the British owned Port shippers do too). These emulate a Vintage Port in that they are drinkable upon reaching the market, have lots of intensity and bright fruit forward flavors early on ... and they can age and improve in the bottle for 5-20+ years (depending). It is a great way to learn about Port on the cheap as these typically can be found from $17-25 depending on producer, vintage and retailer.

b. You can find 375 ml bottles but often times you can pay more for them. But in this economy they should be easier to find at closer to half the price of a 750 ml. Go to http://www.globalwinestocks.com and check it out for what you are buying. They are located on the FTLOP homepate on the right side in PORTfolio which is the 3rd "button" down in orange color. You will also see your share of 500 ml bottles, such as 10 year old Otima Tawny Port by Warre's. There are others out there too.

c. In terms of having something shipped into OK, I'd suggest to start ... but you may wind up lucky if you have a v.solid relationship with a local retailer. Otherwise,if you decide like Glenn mentioned, to ship to your closest out of state friend ... and drive it home -- you must be aware that even this is illegal, as you are crossing state borders. Many people ignore that stuff and I am not suggesting you break any laws.

d. During your experimentation, deciding what you like and why -- what brands, vintages, categories of Port ... only buy 1 or 2 of anything you come across for the first year of purchasing. With limited storage you don't want to tie up space what you may determine a year down the road was not very good to start with. So buy light and with diversity ... until you better understand what you'll want to own 4 and 6 bottles of. By then, you'll be considering finding a 2nd job to fund your growing Port collection, or how to sneak a 250 bottle wine storage refrigerator (that will only be your first one) into your house or garage - OR - how to take out a 2nd mortgage on your home without your wife having to sign.

[Moses Botbol]

If you immediately pour half of a bottle into an empty 375 ML bottle, you'll get more life out of the second half.

Do you have relatives in NYC? A few auction houses are in NYC, along with good liquor stores, so you can ship from NYC to your address.

Sounds like you have a line with your friend at the B&M.

Like Roy mentioned, LBV's are an affordable way to go along with tawny port.

[Brad A.]

Thanks for the advice guys! I fully understand where this could lead as I have a humidor with approximately a couple thousand cigars in it. The other half tolerates that, but I'm not so sure she'd share my joy if I told her I just spent $300 on a bottle of VP. Her issue--and I'll even have to admit that there's some justification for it--is that I'm into too many different things, mainly collectibles and the aforementioned cigars. For the record Glenn, she's the only Sooner in the house. I was a Cowboy before becoming a Golden Hurricane, both of which are proving to be a bit difficult this season. I was bred and born here and likely will remain here until I'm permanently planted. I'll have to double-check on the NY connection--I have a cousin who's son was/is living there.

I have a lot of contacts from a cigar forum who live in "logical" states who would be willing to assist me in acquiring some bottles here and there. I consider myself a law-abiding citizen, but certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over bending a law over a stupid technicality which prevents me from enjoying one of the finer things in life. Other than the crossing state lines thing, is there anything that prevents one from transporting liquor on airlines? I wasn't sure if 9/11 had any effect there? I have an annual trip to Las Vegas in January and have a good friend there who works in the restaurant industry who has indicated that he would be willing to help me in this endeavor.

As far as what to buy, about the only thing that I have to go on is that I really like the Taylor line, especially the 40!! Are there any conclusions that can be drawn from that??

Lastly, I have a dorm-size refrigerator that I used as a humidor at one time that's not being used for anything. I used a temperature controller on it that homebrewer's use for lagering beer and thought about setting it up with some 70% humidity beads (used in cigar world) inside it to give me a little more storage. Will something like this work? It did o.k. as a humidor, except for the wide swings in the humidity level when the compressor would kick on. I imagine that this would be more of a problem for cigars than it would be for corks, but what do I know . . .

[Roy Hersh]

I'll address one or two of the dynamics in your post and let others chime in too.

As to flying with wine, it is not an issue domestically ... however, you MUST check the wine with your luggage and under NO circumstances "domestically" can you fly with wine in carry-on bags (sadly).

As for your mini-refrig, it sounds like that would work for the near term, but I'd suggest VPs stored for the long haul would not do well with that type of system re: the vast fluctuation of RH.

[Derek T.]

As far as what to buy, about the only thing that I have to go on is that I really like the Taylor line, especially the 40!! Are there any conclusions that can be drawn from that??

Conclusion 1: you have good taste.

Conclusion 2: you are about to embark on a very expensive hobby.

Conclusion 3: you'll fit right in here

[Moses Botbol]

As far as what to buy, about the only thing that I have to go on is that I really like the Taylor line, especially the 40!! Are there any conclusions that can be drawn from that?

Who doesn't like Taylor 40? Taylor is a great house.

[Mike Kerr]

a. Given that you mentioned buying on a budget, consider LBV Ports, which are vintage dated and aged in wood for 4-6 years, but often times they remain UNFILTERED (almost all Portuguese brands do this and some of the British owned Port shippers do too). These emulate a Vintage Port in that they are drinkable upon reaching the market, have lots of intensity and bright fruit forward flavors early on ... and they can age and improve in the bottle for 5-20+ years (depending). It is a great way to learn about Port on the cheap as these typically can be found from $17-25 depending on producer, vintage and retailer.

This is an excellent idea. When I first started wading in to the Port waters a few years ago, the first thing I did was start accumulating (as much as possible) one or two bottles of every LBV I could find for a given two-year span by every producer I could find. This lead me to accumulate about 20 different bottles that spanned pretty much every brand of LBV in the market in my area - Croft, Cockburn, Dow, Fonseca, Sandeman, Noval, Graham's, etc. I had a couple of 1998's and the majority were 1999's. Some were filtered, some were unfiltered. In two instances, I had a 98 and a 99 of the same producer, and to round-out the LBV's I had a 1995 Warre's.

I had managed while accumulating this stash to have multiple bottles of the same year by the same producer, and those I tried on my own, but there was no way I was going to be able to go through 20+ bottles myself.

So what I did was once I had rounded out the selection, I bought an additional 3 bottles - a random 10y Tawny, a '94 Colheita, and a VP I think from either '77 or '82...can't recall...the point was to get an affordable yet mature VP.

With this huge stash, I invited ten friends over and organized a Port tasting at my house. Most of them had never experienced Port much, and were eager to learn. This was as much an experiment for myself so I could try all these wines, as well as it was to share the experience and get some friends hooked on it as well. You could charge; I didn't. Set the night up with an overview of Port, how it was made, where it was from, and explained the different types.

The rest was blind. All ports were in paper bags and I tried to mix them up so I didn't know what was what. I opened all bottles for 3 hours and left the caps off. The VP I decanted for 6 hours.

We got through all 20+ LBV's, the Tawny, the Colheita, and for those that stuck it out (it was a LONG night) got to enjoy a very nice VP. Most of the bottles were half empty by the end of the night and were sent home with those who scored them highest. I kept the Tawny, Colheita, and leftover VP.

The awesome part of this is that I (and my friends) got to experience the depth and breadth of how some producers taste. In a couple of examples, we got to see how a producer varied from one year to the next. And we got to see how a young Port compared to a more mature one.

If I had to do it again, I'd pare back to no more than 15 instead of the 20+ I had, but the experience was memorable and started a roving wine tasting every few months at someone else's house.

I try not to think how expensive it was, but then I also took a year and a half of hoarding to build that selection, so at $15-20 a bottle over 18 months, that's not too bad. Obviously, I'd buy multiples now and again so I could try them on my own, but running the gauntlet like that in one night was truly an experience and very educational for someone new to Port.

I may try and do another such tasting later this winter now that I've got a more varied Port cellar...I can even do verticals now.

But bottom line, I'd just run around and see if you can accumulate 5-10 bottles of LBV from different producers within a two-year span (like 2002-2003), throw in a VP from the 80's and organize a Port tasting night for some friends. You'll learn a lot, get to talk about Port, and more importantly get your friends hooked on it too so that the next time you visit their place, they'll have a new bottle of Port for you to taste!

Mike.