For The Love Of Port

I know that magnums do not appear in the retail market all that often. For those in the New York area, PJ Wine is offering 1.5L of Fonseca 2000 VP for $174.99.

Happy Holidays To All!

To be a bit blunt, that is a ridiculous price for such a young vintage (750s of the '00 sold last year as low as $32.95) although if it was the '94 that WOULD be a very different story.

That said, thanks for letting us know.

$175 Seems like a fair but not great price for a magnum of 2000 Fonseca.

And here, I'd be happy just to get a 750 of Fonseca 2000 for $175. Okay, maybe a BIT of an exaggeration, but believe me, not by much (Roy knows, he was up here recently and the poor guy's eyeballs just about fell out of his skull when he saw the price the shop was offering for the '63 Taylor VP that we were tasting that night!)

Just to give you an idea of how much I am not kidding, the regular 750 of Fonseca 2000, if available, goes for between $125 and 145 in Canada.

I do see the SAQ has a Magnum of the very wine of our discussion. Uh huh... $275 C. So $175 is a bargain compared to Canadian prices (but what else is new?!)

Todd

A very decent price, as its on the low end of a W-S check. I remember getting the 2003 Fonseca magnum for about $120...now that was a great deal.

Todd Pettinger wrote:Just to give you an idea of how much I am not kidding, the regular 750 of Fonseca 2000, if available, goes for between $125 and 145 in Canada.

Todd

Hi Todd,

I can't quite agree with the generalization. In B.C., it is well-known that the BCLB buys lots of VP and usually significantly discounts certain remaining stock after about a year. I've been buying my VPs that way here for years and I've done quite well. Some of the sale prices I've run by Roy, and on occasion his advice was "At that price back up the truck!"

At the sale levels, for just a few examples, I bought '97 Taylor for CDN $75 (when the CDN $ was worth about $0.65 US, so more like $50 USD), 2000 Quinta do Vale Dona Maria for CDN $30, 2000 Niepoort Secundum for CDN $30, and most recently 2003 Quinta do Noval for CDN $78.

So I don't think the generalization extends to "Canada". But I agree with the root of your point - Canada generally does not see the same low prices/discounting on wine as the US sees.

Cheers,
Blair

P.S. If you are using the websites of various liquor boards in Canada to figure out pricing, you may not be getting an accurate picture. The website for the BCLB often does not list sale prices. Also sales may be only at certain locations. And overall, there are products not listed on the site at all. So take it with a big grain of salt...or get info from someone "on the ground" in the various provinces.