Two days - three revelations

[Tom Archer]

Went to Portugal the hard way - driving down the valley from Spain.

Had not been sure where we would wind up, first night, so had not booked rooms - hotels are not plentiful, but eventually found decent digs in Foz Coa.

Next door a good restaurant, our meal amusingly interrupted by the recording of a TV commercial for a wine (which the star of the commercial did not drink - even though he polished off the food that served as props for the commercial!)

After the meal we asked for Porto and were served from a stainless steel tank on the bar. The waitress could not tell us what it contained, but it was probably an LBV or Colheita. The quality however was exceptional for a budget port..

Following day we drove down the picturesque Douro valley, stopping briefly at Pinhao and Regua - then on to Porto...

Porto was cold, wet and windy - VNG likewise.

At least a third of the property in central Porto is derelict or deserted - the only good point is that there is very little graffiti or other vandalism.

- But it IS a bit depressing...

We stayed in the Aviz, which is reasonable walking distance from VNG (if you have a raincoat..) an Ok hotel if your standards are not that high!

Having established base camp, we walked over to VNG.

Revelation 1

I had been forewarned that VNG was not a place of bargains. Fair enough. Despite the lack of UK duty, shipping costs and middle men, I was happy to pay full UK merchant retail prices for the privilege of "ex lodge" - and perhaps a tad more...

I was ready and prepared to load my boot (US guys: read Trunk!)

In the event, the best prices I could find for VP were over 50% above this benchmark, and sometimes, way beyond...

I thought this bad strategy - for why?...

..Consider this scenario:

You are a British wine lover who has never got into port, but has taken the trouble to visit VNG. You visit the Taylor lodge (very nicely decked out) - they welcome you kindly and offer you tastings - as the lodges do - the tastings are a dry white and a tawny - neither very impressive.

But, what the hell, Taylor is the biggest name you've heard of, and you push the boat out and buy a bottle of the '94 at 250 euros (their list price) - which is about £172..

You get home and check to see how much you saved by cutting out the middle man, only to find you could have bought the same bottle for £79...

A quote from Mark Twain (Huckelberry Finn) seems appropriate:

The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn’t know no other way

Revelation 2

On visiting the Croft lodge I was shown to the bottle store, wherein I spied a large quantity of double magnums (3L) and imperials (6L).

I pointed out that these large formats were never seen in either the Uk or US - and asked which market had a taste for these.

My guide was also intrigued - "I have never seen these packed for sale" she said, "you must ask the directors"

Directors: can you answer this?

Revelation 3

When you visit several lodges, you find that the guides tend to sing from the same hymn sheet, and that their spiel becomes a bit repetitive - but at Croft, my guide had a surprise.

My guide was very well versed on vintages and the conditions needed to achieve them. She explained with confidence the relative virtues of different vintages before concluding with the following remark:

"And, at this time, we expect to declare the 2005 vintage"

News indeed!

Tom

[Andy Velebil]

Tom,

Thanks for sharing this, I got a chuckle reading it. As for the high prices, I guess it is like most wineries here in the states. It is more expensive to buy most wines at the winery itself than at a retail store somewhere else. A lot of this has to do with the overhead the winery incures by having to store, sell, and ship small quantities themselves. Don't know if that is the reason, but just my $0.02

[Derek T.]

Tom,

Your experience of VNG is much the same as my own - apart from the glorious sunshine that was there when I visited 12 months ago 8)

I too found the prices way over the top with the single exception of the Noval shop. I had done a bit of market research before I went and had some benchmark prices for good vintages from a range of shippers noted down in a book. Only at Noval did the price come within 25% of the UK price, except at Noval where it was normally lower than in the UK. I don't think this is anything to do with them selling low volume or to support the expense of having a visitors centre/shop. They must know that people (especially from outside the EU) can only buy small quantities when they visit so they are simply hiking up the price to make oportunistic profit. It's exactly the same as having to pay £2 for a can of Coke at Disneyland - they charge it because they can and because your only choice is to buy it or go without. Not many people would visit VNG and not buy a couple of bottles of something, so they charge what they can get away with to a captive audience. Not a good strategy to encourage people to switch to drinking good quality port when they get home.

I went on about 8 to 10 tours in the wine lodges. Croft was by far the best. All of the others were scripted tours with little or no information that you can't pick-up from a "beginners guide to port" article in a wine magazine. At Croft we were taken into parts of the cellar that were actually at work. There were men building new casks, scraping sediment out of a huge old vat and red water running down the cobbled road as a result of them cleaning out casks ready to accept the next batch of juice. Our guide was extremely knowledgable and encouraged questioning. She seemed to relish being taken off-script and I'm sure this must be more enjoyable for the guide as well as the visitor. I don't know if I just arrived on a lucky day but your experience seems to suggest that Croft are putting more thought into the tours than the other shippers - everyone buy some Croft

On the Magnums and Imperials, I asked the same question (can't remember where) and was told that these are used for any large dinner functions hosted by the owners or their friends/business associates.

I wonder if we could find a merchant in the UK willing to give us a good price on 2005 today

Derek

[Roy Hersh]

Tom,

Thanks for your report. Did you get to visit VinoLogia?

Sorry about all of that rain, although it would make me feel right at home like here in Seattle.

Did you have any Port wine discoveries during your trip?


Derk wrote:

All of the others were scripted tours with little or no information that you can't pick-up from a "beginners guide to port" article in a wine magazine.

This is where Mario and I hope to provide a significant point of difference in the future. The tours and the wines poured on them when making a visit, even with appointments, is usually not what we'd call "inspired."

It is one of the things that the Port trade must change, especially the sales of Ports in Oporto shops and VNG Lodges. The pricing has prevented me from buying almost any Port during my trips to the "promised land" although in restaurants and a few key spots around Oporto, great by-the-glass and bottle opportunities do exist.

Look for our upcoming harvest trips which will take place this fall. We are going to put a few different tours together at various price points and durations.

[Tom Archer]

Derek said:

I too found the prices way over the top with the single exception of the Noval shop

I didn't have any Nacional prices with me - looking back and checking wine-searcher, I note that the prices I remember are roughly in line with the retail market - so I will forgive Noval!

I bought some port tongs at the Noval shop - nicely packaged in a neat wooden box, they seemed very good value at 23 euros.

Roy said:

Did you have any Port wine discoveries during your trip

My opinion of white port was raised a couple of notches (from samples at Croft and Offley) Taylor's Chip Dry was acidic and very unimpressive.

The 'tap' port at the restaurant in Foz Coa is frustrating - it was an excellent glass - very smooth with a distinctive cocoa bouquet - a hint of tawny (or age) in the colour - hard to identify, but very satisfying.

I think they charged us 1.5 euros a glass - so very much at the budget end of the scale.

I planned to visit Vinologia, but the weather got in the way. We had to park about half a mile from the hotel, and I inadvertantly left their address in the car.

With the rain, I didn't fancy walking back to the car much, so hoped to chance on the place - but didn't!

Tom

[Al B.]

I once queried the pricing of port offered for sale at the Lodges in VNdG when I was on a visit. I made the same comparison that what I was being offered in the Lodge was significantly more expensive than I would spend if I bought the same wine in the UK.

Than answer that I was given was that the price offered by the Lodge is effectively the price at which the next parcel of that particular vintage will be sold by the Port House to the UK (and other) merchants. Merchants and individuals in the UK may still have stocks that were bought at original prices and may have retail prices based on the original costs, but replacement of any stocks that the merchants sell on would be at the higher price and in line with the Lodge retail price.

I never did any research to see if this was a true story, or if it was a "stock" answer for someone who knew the current market prices back home, but it did make sense to me.

Alex

[Tom Archer]

That's a classic yarn they spun you Alex!

As they well know, the market ultimately sets the prices - not the producer!

Tom

[Derek T.]

Alex,

This explanation doesn't stack-up. The current market rate is the current market rate. No-one knows what the market rate will be tomorrow. We know that importers and retailers need their pound of flesh so the shippers ex-cellar price should always be at least 25% below what you would pay in, say, BBR. If what they told you was true then at any given point in time the retailers would be about to hike up the market price of every bottle by about 50% - can't be true.

I'm 100% convinced that they are applying the full effect of supply and demand to a captive market. Roy is the only person I have heard off that has gone to VNG and not bought a bottle or two. The bottom line is that these guys are setting an excessive price in the knowledge that 99.99% of visitors will bite.

I have read remarks over the years that the port industry is somewhat commercially naive - don't believe it for a minute

Derek

[Tom Archer]

Roy is the only person I have heard off that has gone to VNG and not bought a bottle or two. The bottom line is that these guys are setting an excessive price in the knowledge that 99.99% of visitors will bite

I was ready to spend up to 2000 euros loading the car - but in the event only bought two bottles costing a total of less than 60 euros. Their greed cost them a lot of profit.

Many of the visitors to VNG are potential converts to the cause of the "special categories" - the most profitable aspect of the market.

Ripping them off is no way to encourage them to place orders with their wine merchants back home.

Tom

[Jay Woodruff]

Revelation 2

On visiting the Croft lodge I was shown to the bottle store, wherein I spied a large quantity of double magnums (3L) and imperials (6L).

I pointed out that these large formats were never seen in either the Uk or US - and asked which market had a taste for these.

My guide was also intrigued - "I have never seen these packed for sale" she said, "you must ask the directors"

Directors: can you answer this?

This has been asked before but I have never seen an asnwer as to why we never see more than a magnum for Porto.

I have always presumed that it is because of the sales of half bottles and such, the assumption is that so few double mags and larger would ever be bought, that it is pointless to import them.

Perhaps also, those who would actually purchase a double mag or larger are also thos who like to age their Porto and so one needs to be buying for great grandchildren. Dunno.

Sure would be great though to have access to some older wines in that format for a large party. Imperial though.... wow.

Jay.

[Roy Hersh]

Actually Derek, I never said never in my last post. I have purchased two bottles of Port (the sum total of my trips there). They were 1952 Dalva White Colheita. I had never seen or heard of Dalva white Colheita until I tasted the 1952. Nobody I have asked in Canada or the USA had ever heard of it either. Delicious juice.

Re: Large Formats
The largest size Port bottle I have is 3 liter (dbl. Mag). Originally I was told that it was illegal to ship bottles of Port over to the USA, that are larger than 1.5 Liter bottles. The reason I was given, but a very knowledgeable Regional Port Manager on the W. Coast, was that the (at the time) BATF ruled that the amount of alcohol in a bottle of that size, exceeded the legal limitation and categorized the bottle as Liquor.

I asked George Sandeman about this as I know he is very familiar with US regs and he told me that the guy was full of it.

I have never seen any Port larger than 5 or 6 liter bottles, and those were in the offices and displays in Gaia Lodges.

[Derek T.]

Actually Roy, I never said never either! I said you went to Gaia and didn't buy (on at least one occassion?)


I have heard of the bottle size regulations in the US before - is this all just a myth? Is Marco the man who can give us the truth?

Derek

[Roy Hersh]

The man who gave us the REAL truth, is Julian Wiseman!

[Andy Velebil]

8 years later and it's amazing how ALL of our knowledge and experience has changed. Time does fly........

[Al B.]

And so does the size of port bottles we buy. Why oh why did I buy a 6 litre bottle of Vesuvio 2011? At the age of 50, when am I ever going to open that?

Perhaps at my 100th birthday party after a flight of 15 1963 vintage ports shared with friends of similar age and their geriatric nurses.

[Glenn E.]

Why oh why did I buy a 6 litre bottle of Vesuvio 2011? At the age of 50, when am I ever going to open that?

Presumably at the same time that I open my 6 liter bottle of 2011 Quevedo. :)

[Brad Bogdan]

Why oh why did I buy a 6 litre bottle of Vesuvio 2011? At the age of 50, when am I ever going to open that?

Presumably at the same time that I open my 6 liter bottle of 2011 Quevedo. :)

I'll be happy to wheel both of your wheelchairs around, I should only be to cane stage by then .


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[Andy Velebil]

Why oh why did I buy a 6 litre bottle of Vesuvio 2011? At the age of 50, when am I ever going to open that?

Presumably at the same time that I open my 6 liter bottle of 2011 Quevedo. :)

I'll be happy to wheel both of your wheelchairs around, I should only be to cane stage by then .


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You'll open it when enough of us are old enough to sit around in our wheelchairs talking about the good old days in the Douro and how it's now become a busy tourist destination full of casino's and neon lights.

[Al B.]

You'll open it when enough of us are old enough to sit around in our wheelchairs talking about the good old days in the Douro and how it's now become a busy tourist destination full of casino's and neon lights.

LOL

If someone wants to organise an FTLOP port party in Portugal in 15-20 years time -and which I can attend - I'll be happy to bring my 6 litre bottle of Vesuvio. I might make it an excuse for a cellar reduction party!

[Andy Velebil]

Alex. I'll raise u (or lower) a 3l of 2011 Graham's to pair with your 6L Vesuvio.


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