Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

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Eric Menchen
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Eric Menchen »

Glenn E. wrote:Furthermore, their description of the "100" is wrong. That's a 500 ml bottle, not a 750 ml bottle. An occasional error is understandable, but not on a bottle that could be worth $1000. You get those right.
Apparently they themselves are confused on that.
Description: Bid on this bottle of Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 100 Years Old Port (500ml) in original wood.
... Bottle Size: 750 ml
John Trombley
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by John Trombley »

This is not a time to get down on a particular retailer, but I have had troubling exchanges with this one of late, treating a serious complaint as if it were made by a newbie who didn't know what he was talking about (poor packaging allowing rapid acceleration and deceleration during handling by shipper because the use of overly large and long inside measure styro inserts, pick it up and it goes BLAM BLAM!) The bottles were rare and expensive--Tokaji Aszu Esszencia--and no detailed inquiry about this to ownership or administration was ever responded to. Won't go into more details, but a little vigilance might be in order in the direction of this usually impeccable retailer, with whom I have had contact with for perhaps 40 years. I didn't want to make a general complaint after this single instance, however irritating, but if others are having even more serious potential problems as well, a word to the wise might be OK here. Sounds like administrative oversight needs beefing up a notch.
Last edited by John Trombley on Sat Nov 18, 2017 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Glenn E.
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Glenn E. »

Eric Menchen wrote:
Glenn E. wrote:Furthermore, their description of the "100" is wrong. That's a 500 ml bottle, not a 750 ml bottle. An occasional error is understandable, but not on a bottle that could be worth $1000. You get those right.
Apparently they themselves are confused on that.
Description: Bid on this bottle of Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 100 Years Old Port (500ml) in original wood.
... Bottle Size: 750 ml
Yeah, that's a new change to the description, and as you point out it doesn't even match their listed bottle size.

Even sketchier? They're not notifying bidders of any of these changes. Someone may have bid on that "100" thinking it was a 750, but now it's listed as a 500 and they've not been notified of the correction.
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Andy Velebil »

I've received an email today that they have pulled the lot, they apologized and will be relisting again later with the correct descriptions.




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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Glenn E. »

I hope the person who won the "60" for $277 is happy with a leaker! Looks like that auction ended normally. If I were that person I'd be going back to them for a discount due to the incorrect - and then altered! - condition.
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Houston Porter »

According to what I'm seeing through those links, the 60 sold for $277 and the 100 closed with "No bids." I wasn't watching but saw someone in the thread mention the price was going up on it, so clearly there were bids. I wonder if they pulled it.

As far as K&L, I've had some problems with them over the past year, but they do pretty good in the "fix it" customer service department. I do see that they corrected the 100 to properly read that it was a 500ml bottle, so that was good. But, I recently purchased a magnum bottle of Graham's 1970 Vintage, only to have it arrive poorly packaged, but in worse condition than the photo they listed. When I emailed my concerns, they phoned me back very quickly to address my issues. The bad was that they tried to tell me the photo was simply a stock photo. So, I had to point out that the Selo was identical, although mine was soaked almost beyond recognition. That was the second problem. The fill is still at a good level, but the Selo had gotten soaked since the photo was taken. Also, they did not disclose that the bottle had come from a private collection. Maybe I was being naive, but I know that these came in through a San Franciscan importer, and I know that K&L has been around for a while, so I assumed it was from their collection or one purchased from an imported that went out of business. Either way, I assumed it would have been stored properly. (Also, they're other ports usually say whether they are from a private collection.) Anyway, I threw out a deeply discounted number that would make me comfortable keeping this bottle (which we'll likely open on my 50th birthday, in 2020), and they accepted. So, although I'm not happy with how they handled this pre-sale, I am satisfied with how they handled the problem once I brought it to their attention. BUT, we won't know for sure if there is something wrong with the bottle until we open it.

Another problem I had was when I received a bottle of Ramos Pinto 30 Years Old Tawny for my birthday tasting last year. It was the first and only bottle of "rotten" port I have ever opened, albeit I've only opened about 300 bottles (approx) at this point. It was awful and even our brand new port folks immediately smelled something wrong (we were doing a blind taste test of about a dozen 30's) and asked if they should still try it. K&L sent me another bottle, but of course at that point it was too late to incline the RP, which is one of our favorite 30's, in the tasting, so that was a huge disappointment. (I think they should have comped me the new bottle, but then again, I recognize how exacting us port folks can be, and know that would have definitely changed my opinion of them.)
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Glenn E. »

Houston Porter wrote:According to what I'm seeing through those links, the 60 sold for $277 and the 100 closed with "No bids." I wasn't watching but saw someone in the thread mention the price was going up on it, so clearly there were bids. I wonder if they pulled it.
There were bids, and they did pull it. They're supposedly going to try again soon, but this time hopefully with a more accurate description and correct bottle size.

Last bid I saw was slightly over $500, which was reaching my limit for a damaged bottle. I still have 2 bottles that I got from the buying op, and they're in perfect condition (as are all of my "60s"), so something very wrong has happened to this poor bottle. I simply can't fathom a 2-year old bottling leaking like that without external influences.

It is also possible that it was leaked on and not itself a leaker, but we can't be sure of that and clearly K&L didn't ask for clarification from the seller. The fill levels on the "60" looked fine. I can't tell for certain on the "100" but from what I could see it seemed good enough.
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Houston Porter »

I didn't realize it was bottled so recently or yes, I would have seen the stained Selo as a red flag. I'm surprised that they didn't inquire from the seller, but maybe they don't have someone on staff that understands port. Their initial answer certainly makes it seem that way.
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Glenn E. »

We were among the first non-industry people - if not THE first - to taste both of these Ports in 2014 on the Port Harvest Tour at the quinta, along with a "50" that he was also working on and the mother wines for most of the S. Leonardo lineup. We purchased some "60" at the time, and they were all hand bottled in blank bottles with hand-written numbers to indicate what it was. The "100" wasn't even ready for that, at that time.

The FTLOP bottling was, as far as I know, the first time either Port was bottled for any purpose. That's why this "60" comes in an S. Leonardo 40 Year Old bottle with a sticker over the number 40... the actual "60" bottles weren't ready yet. That bottling was in early 2015, and is almost certainly where this bottle comes from. A picture of the back label would confirm it, because IIRC the "bottling date" on the back says FTLOP instead of a year.
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Houston Porter »

Glenn E. wrote:We were among the first non-industry people - if not THE first - to taste both of these Ports in 2014 on the Port Harvest Tour at the quinta, along with a "50" that he was also working on and the mother wines for most of the S. Leonardo lineup. We purchased some "60" at the time, and they were all hand bottled in blank bottles with hand-written numbers to indicate what it was. The "100" wasn't even ready for that, at that time.

The FTLOP bottling was, as far as I know, the first time either Port was bottled for any purpose. That's why this "60" comes in an S. Leonardo 40 Year Old bottle with a sticker over the number 40... the actual "60" bottles weren't ready yet. That bottling was in early 2015, and is almost certainly where this bottle comes from. A picture of the back label would confirm it, because IIRC the "bottling date" on the back says FTLOP instead of a year.
Oh Wow!!! How awesome. I had no idea that those are basically in the U.S. because of FTLOP. No wonder FTLOP folks are so gung ho on Leonardo ports. Sounds like you guys have been treated pretty well by them.

...the problem for me now is that I'm torn between wanting to save my 30 and 40 from the last FTLOP buy and opening them immediately so I'll finally know what all the fuss is about.

With the wife wanting us to drink some of our 100+ bottles before I buy more...I'm definitely leaning towards the latter and will likely open these up over Christmas. ...then again, my wife is Italian, so wine is like water to her and so she may just be making a fuss because she wants to drink more port. LOL.)
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Glenn E. »

Houston Porter wrote:Oh Wow!!! How awesome. I had no idea that those are basically in the U.S. because of FTLOP. No wonder FTLOP folks are so gung ho on Leonardo ports. Sounds like you guys have been treated pretty well by them.
There are benefits to being a subscriber to the FTLOP newsletter. [cheers.gif]
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Re: Quinta do Mourão S. Leonardo 60 & 100 Year Old Port...

Post by Houston Porter »

Glenn E. wrote:
Houston Porter wrote:Oh Wow!!! How awesome. I had no idea that those are basically in the U.S. because of FTLOP. No wonder FTLOP folks are so gung ho on Leonardo ports. Sounds like you guys have been treated pretty well by them.
There are benefits to being a subscriber to the FTLOP newsletter. [cheers.gif]
Yes, glad I finally joined. It was actually the last FTLOP buy that convinced me it was time to join in the fun. Ayesha does nice work. We took half a dozen of the Portuguese wines down to our local Sommelier (level 3), who had a level 4 friend visiting from England, and did a tasting. For the price, the wines were quite impressive.
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