Funky stuff on winebid.com this week

[Eric Menchen]

Not funky as in spoiled by wild yeast, but just different. I'm not going to say any of these are worthwhile given the time in the bottle, but there are a bunch of Colheitas:

• 1941 Moreira Colheita Port, bottled in 2000; and a 1950, 1952, and 1957
• 1944 Souza Guedes Port of the Vintage, bottled in 1973; and a 1951
• 1963 Messias, bottled in 1984
• 1952 Dalva, bottled in 1981, among other Dalvas

I was only considering the Moreiras as they have a reasonable bottling year, but ...

[Glenn E.]

Moreiras are... interesting. I have a couple of bottles left of the 1937 Colheita and they're best after about 10 days in the decanter. It takes them a really long time to fully open up and evolve.

Once they're ready, they're pretty good. And it's also fun to taste them over a couple of weeks and take note of the progression. But they're not really something you'd probably want to have for tastings as it can be pretty difficult to predict when they're going to peak.

I'm not fond of winebid.com though. Their premium is high and then they charge CA sales tax on top of that. You end up paying around 25% more than you bid when you buy through them.

[Roy Hersh]

That uptick is ridiculous, no matter how you slice it. Morreira is not a brand of Port that I would ever bank on. I've had some good experiences including a 1966 quite recently but have had very mixed results with 1937 and others. They can be found really cheap normally.

[Eric Ifune]

I have some 52, 64, and 65 Morreira all bottled in 2000. The 65 is actually the best of the three. Decent stuff.

[Andy Velebil]

First off, Winebid doesn't exactly have a great track record of properly describing bottles or inspecting them to ensure they're in sound condition. A place I stopped buying from due to those issues. Second, way to much money for those given the reasons stated by Roy, which I've also encountered.

[Eric Menchen]

I still buy from winebid, albeit carefully. Yes, their descriptions can be inaccurate, as they sometimes mistake Colheitas for VP. One time I bought what I thought was a 1960 Niepoort VP that turned out to be a Colheita. Luckily it was only $60, a steal either way IMHO. The best information on the bottles is the pictures, and they have good pictures of nearly every bottle. Now I tend to only buy if the picture is definitive. In a few cases I have also sent them e-mail for confirmation or additional information. Glenn, my guess is that they have a business presence in Washington state, or you just have unfriendly tax laws. When I buy from winebid the markup is 14% premium and 1% insurance, for 15% total, not 25%.

[Glenn E.]

When I buy from winebid the markup is 14% premium and 1% insurance, for 15% total, not 25%.

It's possible that something has changed, but the last two times that I accidentally bought something from winebid.com I was also charged 10% California sales tax. It's not a WA presence issue, because in that case they'd be charging me WA sales tax and this was clearly marked as CA sales tax.

When challenged, they explained that they were using a loophole to allow shipping. I technically take possession of stuff I buy from them in CA and then they act as my agent for shipping purposes. Other companies that I buy from in CA do not do this, so in my view winebid.com is just being lazy. Shipping into WA must be pretty easy because just about every online shipper can do it... so I don't know what winebid.com's problem is.

[Roy Hersh]

Greed!