For The Love Of Port

Hi everyone

I have 2 bottles of dow 1963.

Bottle 1: Black capsule (like more modern vintages) Foil?
Says "DOW'S VINTAGE 1963 OPORTO
Says "owners of the finest vineyards in portugal" accross the very bottom of label.

Bottle 2: Red/pink capsule (old style - looks like a helmet) Wax?
Says"DOW 1963 VINTAGE PORT"
Says "owners of the" at top left "finest vinyards" at top right. seperating this text in between is a white circle with W Dow in a triangle with OPORTO beneath the triangle.

Also on the shoulder of both bottles there is an oval (raised) which says DOW 1963. On bottle 1 the text is clearly more raised than on bottle 2. "DOW" is more spaced out (space between letters) on bottle 2.

Is this normal? I assumed both bottles would look the same unless they were English bottled? Thanks in advance for any input.

Chris

Chris,

Good question. The last major declaration that was allowed to be shipped in cask and bottled abroad was 1970. As a result, that vintage and prior exist many different types of labels and bottles for the same vintage of VP. Many of these labels are rather "cheesy" or cheap looking, yet are still perfectly fine. As it was what the bottler decided to use. I've also seen different types of bottles used for the same vintage, when all were bottled in Villa Nova d. Gaia. I've been told this was because at varying times bottles were hard to source (and quality wasn't always very good) in Portugal and producers ended up using whatever they could get their hands on. Of course things have changed a lot and the availability and quality has gone up since the laws changed and the producers now have to bottled everything themselves.

I can't say 100% about your bottles, as I've not seen pictures. If you could post pictures of both that would really help.


(Opps, I noticed a typo and corrected it)

Chris,

Pictures would be good but I would not be concerned about different bottles for the same wine of the 63 vintage. As Andy has said, much of that wine will have been bottled in the UK or elsewhere. Each bottler would have sourced their bottles from a different supplier.

The difference in capsules is even less of a concern as each bottler would have adopted their own style at that time.

Derek

I've even seen some variation in post-1970 bottlings of the same product. For instance, I have some 1977 Smith Woodhouse with the new multi-colored label, and some with the plain old black and white. I believe they are all from 1977, but some left the lodge in 1979, and others weren't labeled until later. Then there are the different labels for different markets, etc.

I have Dow with red capsules too and have only had very good experiences with those bottles. As others have said, don't worry about fakes at this level.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have since found pictures of both labels on the Internet. As you said labels and bottles did vary back then. Thanks again. Chris