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Good morning knowledgable fellow port lovers,

I ran in to this bottle of Sandeman's Partners' Port and was wondering if any of you can give me the story and an indication of age?

Thanks in advance!

It is a basic (inexpensive) Ruby Port, bottled sometime around the very early 1970's or earlier. It is worth basically nothing. Depending on how it's been stored it may still be drinkable, but you better have a backup bottle just in case. These were made to be consumed within a couple years of being bottled not stored for the better part of a half century.

Thanks for the confirmation Andy!

I knew it's a regular (old) ruby, but just wasn't sure which age to attribute to this upcoming tasting experience!
Having read an old post here on the old style/new style selo and just now having checked old vintage ports in my own cellar, I must agree with your estimate.
Just one odd thing: my whole case of Niepoort Vintage 1963 has the new style selo's, even though they were bottled in 1965 ......
Could this be because they were a later release from Niepoort?

Thanks again for the quick support!

J

HattNoble wrote: ↑17:02 Fri 23 Feb 2018Just one odd thing: my whole case of Niepoort Vintage 1963 has the new style selo's, even though they were bottled in 1965 ......
Could this be because they were a later release from Niepoort?

Yes, exactly correct; labels and selos may be applied at any time from bottling until release from cellars, so it is perfectly possible for pre-'70 bottles to have the new selo provided they were released from the producer later. Equally I believe there may be some post-'75 bottles with old selos, since (as far as I know) there is no requirement to use them within a set period, though I don't remember seeing any.

Here's a Niepoort 1977 with an old selo ...

As Phil mentioned. There was no set rule to mandate a switch. One just had to use up what they had then move on to the new ones. It's quite rare for anything past about 74 to have the old Selo. But it is Port so exceptions abound. BTW, there are also '77 Niepoort's with the new Selo too.

Of course, if there is any doubt and you would like to send me any bottles of Niepoort '70 or '77 that you have any suspicions about, I would be happy to open them, drink them, and let you know whether I thought they were genuine