Seeing some astounding deals on vintage port at auction. Meaning 10 to 20 year old vintage port from the top names (Taylor, Fonseca, etc.), good vintages, good reviews, at under $50/bottle ($20-25 a half bottle). Older ports from the 80s or 90s are more expensive but still extremely cheap for wines with that kind of age, reputation and reviews. There are some exceptions (Nova Nacional, some 2011s), but in general these wines seem to be selling well under release price.
I can’t think of any other wine considered world class where reasonably well aged stuff from top producers sells for these kinds of prices. No liquor either actually. Maybe Sauternes is closest but even there.
I wouldn’t say I’m a huge port fan myself, but I’ve definitely had some very good experiences with aged port – the smoothness and texture can be remarkable, and of course if you have any tolerance or taste for sweetness these wines do handle sweetness well. Hard to resist getting a few at these prices, especially since they last forever. But presumably there is no urgency as this is a very out of fashion wine apparently. Are people just incurious about it or find the sweetness and brandied quality just totally intolerable? TBH I find some California wines that sell for astronomical prices are nearly as sweet and alcoholic.
Not going to lie, I have been building up my collection of Vintage Port given how great these prices are. Doesn’t hurt that WineBid is a quick hop across the bay to pick up them up.
The biggest issue I have is consuming the bottle before it looses to much of the nuance that makes VP such a great experience. I just got around to experimenting with a Recork on VP. I recently popped open a 95 Quinta do Infantado (Maybe not a top name, but I have found them to be very solid) and tossed one on. So far all signs point to this possibly being the key to consuming more VP at home. Hopefully will have more of a data point after several more days.
I haven’t seen prices like that, but granted I’m mostly looking for stuff from the 70s or 80s. Those used to be ridiculously cheap for the quality, but have definitely crept up considerably in just the past couple years. I may need to start looking in that 10 to 20 year old category.
Just from my casual perusing of auctions it seems like the inflection point where there starts to be an aging premium in prices is around the 1994 vintage and before.
But I got some perfect condition 2003 Taylor and Fonseca for $45 a bottle. Twenty years counts as a good head start on aging it seems like, even if you might want to wait a few years for optimal age.
I guess it was about 10-15 years ago that I was finding a lot of '83s and '85s at very low prices. That was wonderful. Vintages like '77 and '94 command a premium, with good reason. I think Vintage Port is just out of fashion, but maybe a tiny bit less than it was at that time (or I’m just not seeing such great prices anymore).
Even though I like VP and buy / drink it, US consumption patterns aren’t what they used to begenerations ago. The category overall might have normal wine enthusiasts only open bottles a few times a year, after celebratory dinners with family, friends.
The big shippers, like the Sauternais, may be adjusting their output and seem to have more dry table wines in their stable now.
Prices for Banyuls, Maury, Rivesaltes and others of this ilk have also flatlined for a generation. I’m fine with that - as long as the producers still survive - as I think that’s mostly normal when the speculative/trophy component of value is removed from prices.
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One thing I’d note - and I doubt I’m the only person affected by this - is that Port and other fortified wines make me feel unusually sluggish / groggy the next day. If I had a couple glasses of dry red wine, there would be no effect. A reasonable pour of VP (let’s say 150ml or so) and I’ll feel it the next day. So it makes it much more of a Friday/Saturday/Holiday treat.
Man, I don’t even know where to start with the stuff, and the need to age for long periods of time has kept me out of getting into it. I’d be curious to try an example of something that’s both approachable in price and is ready to drink. Would one of you be able to provide a suggestion for one of these under $50/good value bottles to look at? Bonus points if there’s availability on Winebid. I’ve recently been sipping on a 2000 Rivesaltes Rancio and it’s been incredible. Generally I love sweet wine, just haven’t gotten into Port yet.
I think most wine drinkers like Port, but most of them rarely ever feel like opening a bottle of Port. When we’ve discussed it on here in the past (as we have, of course, many times), most of us have some Port sitting in the cellar and it just sits there. Same for other sweet wines. Unless your last name is Bronstein or Agrawal.
And given the flat pricing and availability of older bottles without much appreciation, there really isn’t anything spurring wine enthusiasts to go grab more Port for their cellar. You feel like you could just get one any time, so why devote dollars and cellar space to it now.
It’s hard to pin down why that is, but I think alcohol/driving is one reason, and also that it’s something people usually want a couple ounces of but don’t want to have multiple glasses, so it often doesn’t feel like “the right time” to open a bottle.
Another thing that drives the disconnect between scores and pricing is that, to be blunt, wine critics give sweet wines really high scores. I don’t know exactly why they do, but it feels like any sweet wine starts at 90 points and goes up quickly from there. A solid $30 sweet wine seems to be able to get 92+ points without breaking a sweat. I guess it’s just in the nature of sweet wines that the floor seems so high.
For me this is the issue, as my spouse isn’t much of a drinker. I can buy 375 of a sticky, and can even use a Coravin to take small pours over a few weeks. But with Port, I worry that I’d open it, and the bottle would go south before I finish it. And like Chris says, I have a couple bottles of Port that just sit there waiting, I suppose for some magical dinner party where everyone wants Port at the end of the night.
With us wine geeks, we’ve usually opened too many bottles over those big dinner parties, and lots of wine is still out on the table by the end of the meal, so the impulse to go open a bottle of Port is usually DOA.
For me, port is most attractive over the winter during holidays or vacations, where you can leave a bottle of it open for 24-48 hours and take pleasant sips over that time. I usually don’t find 1-2 days degrades a port whereas it definitely does for a table wine. Then if you have guests they will be doing the same. But that only works a couple of times a year.
I wonder if port could match with any savory dishes or main course type foods. I bet the English drank port with dinner back in the heyday of this wine. That would be a game changer.
Port is enough of a production on those occasions when we consume it that its usually planned, strained, decanted, allowed to breathe etc.
Now I’m trying to figure out if the Easter Brunch we’re going to this weekend will have enough people who would drink dessert wines to merit bringing a bottle, in addition to the magnum of Rioja I had pulled!
I have a fair amount of vintage Port and find I only drink it in the winter. I bring a bottle of Tawny with me every weekend I go ice fishing and that satisfies my needs but rarely open up vintage Port. I’ll bet I open up 15 bottles of Tawny and 1 vintage every year.
Im pretty much in the “do not like” camp for port. Even aged its too alcoholic for me. I can handle SW French fortified wines like Banyuls, Maury and Rivesaltes as they don’t quite hit the same alcohol levels.
How fragile is port? I have a euro cave that is full for expensive/delicate stuff and more burly overflow goes in the crawlspace lol. Seems like it would be pretty burly given its abv.
I’m a fan, but don’t drink a bunch. Agree with those that feel a 750ml is usually too much so a bit of an inhibitor. I have about dozen 750’s of port or stickies, but 40 375’s.
