I decided to cheer myself up, whilst shopping with 'Her Indoors'. I bought a Marks and Spencers 10yr Old Tawny, for £10.98, which had no clue as to the Real Shipper. As a few of you had said, there is often a Quality Shipper hiding behind the BOB!It did have a 'Decanter Gold Award' on the T Cork Label. When I checked out their site, the only Gold Award given to M&S Port is this
Gold : Taylor's Marks & Spencer NV
10 Year Old Tawny, Port, Portugal
(Red - Port Blend - Fortified)
Spice, old wood and alcohol. Big, lots of intensity of flavours. Long, lovely balance. Fine acidity. Very stylish wine.
UK price:£10.98 M&S
And getting to the point....Its very good!
Although vey light in colour, the taste is very smooth. I can see why it was described as they did. For £11, its a good un. I'm on it for the night now. They do a 20yr old for twice the price, may try that sometime, although Decanter only gave that a Silver.
So many Ports....So little time!
Its very, very unusual for a BOB not to contain any clue as to who the shipper is. There is usually small print somewhere on the front or back label that says something along the lines of "bottled for Marks and Spencer by Vinhos do Porto & Companhia Lda."
Its then a bit tricky to be able to go to the next jump of saying "Aha! I know that obscure Portuguese company just happens to be the one that the Taylor company use to do their bottling."
But it can be done. Is there any clue at all on the labelling of your 10 yo that points to Taylors?
You are right, but I didn't want to go on and on in the first post. :blah:
It has on it 'bottled by Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers, Vinhos, SA, VN Gaia' and also that it was matured in Oak Casks at 'Vila Nova De Gaia'
So off I went Googling, and couldn't find much out about the Bottlers, and found that the latter was just the Storage part of that town Gaia.
So what did I miss? Which is the bit that would have said Taylors to you and the guys?
I've also found out that the cheapest internet price for Taylors 10yr old Tawney was £16ish, so I can understand the secrecy.
Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers is a company which belongs to the Taylor Fladgate Partnership. TFP own Taylor's, Fonseca, Croft and a few other brands. Just because this is bottled by QVB doesn't make it Taylor's port, it could be from any of the TFP brands or even a blend of more than one.
From what I understand, Quinta & Vineyard Bottlers SA is the part of the Taylor Fladgate group of companies that bottles either all of their wines (and I believe that you can even find them mentioned on some of the recently shipped vintage wines) or is used only to bottle wines that are blended across the houses in the Taylors group. I'm not completely certain which it is.
The other point that is worth mentioning is that it is not a given that a BOB wine will be the same as the shipper's standard wine. Some supermarket buyers will go out and sample a whole variety of wines offered by potential suppliers and then choose the one they like best. If this is the case with M&S (and I don't know how M&S do their buying) then you have a bottle of Taylors 10yo at a bargain price. Other supermarkets will approach a favoured supplier and describe the type, flavour and price of a particular wine and will then leave it to the producer to come up with something to that spec. Under these circumstances you will end up with a wine different from the shipper's normal wine but probably still enough in common for you to be able to recognise similarities.
Perhaps your next challenge could be to drink samples from each of an M&S 10yo and a Taylors 10yo and see which you think is nicest.
Although I understand your reasoning and caution on whether its a Taylor or not. Surely Decanter wouldn't call it a Taylor and give it a Gold award if it wasn't. I accept the point of it could well be a different blend and therefore not the same as the 'Pure' Taylor 10yr old Tawny, but, the base line of all this is its good!
I thought so before I started searching its heritage, and the fact that it is from a main shipper of some sorts, and has attracted M&S's only Gold in their current Wine Division(Not just Port), makes me think its worthy of a sip.
Alex,
I'm going to start taking Notes of the Comparisons I want to do. I'd love to try them both and see, but my head is spinning with how many times I've said that recently. Good fun though.
Onwards and Upwards!
Most BOB's vary from time to time as the retailer will buy whatever meets their quality and price criteria and then sell it under the same label. So, just because M&S have sold a Taylor's 10 yr old doesn't mean that they don't also have some from another source within the TFP group.
That said, the Glod Award suggests that the one you have was produced by Taylor's - which doesn't mean it is the same wine that Taylor's sell under their own brand.
