Corks and bottles: Oporto versus London

[jdaw1]

From the Wine Society catalogue of September 1950.

‟N.B. The above wines, bottled in Oporto, have very soft corks, and great care is necessary when drawing them before decanting.”

Edit: title changed from ‟Corks: Oporto versus London” to ‟Corks and bottles: Oporto versus London”.

[jdaw1]

Interesting observation about the corks..

Tom

[uncle tom]

As far as I can establish, the British bottlers not only used corks from Portugal, but may also have often had them supplied by the shippers, as the branding on corks from different bottlers is frequently identical.

I can't be absolutely sure that this was always the case, but it is apparent on the later English bottlings.

So why should OB corks be more prone to breaking, if they come from the same source?

It is possible that the best corks tended to go for export, and that the Wine Society at the time was sourcing its own corks; but here is another possibility..

As we all know, getting old corks out of ancient bottles is a bit of nightmare, as the waisted necks cause the corks to break. It's hard to tell for sure looking from the outside, but are the old Portuguese bottles slightly more waisted than the British ones?

Tom

[jdaw1]

Title changed from ‟Corks: Oporto versus London” to ‟Corks and bottles: Oporto versus London”.

Interesting hypothesis Uncle T., and testable.

[Andy Velebil]

As far as I can establish, the British bottlers not only used corks from Portugal, but may also have often had them supplied by the shippers, as the branding on corks from different bottlers is frequently identical.

I can't be absolutely sure that this was always the case, but it is apparent on the later English bottlings.

So why should OB corks be more prone to breaking, if they come from the same source?

It is possible that the best corks tended to go for export, and that the Wine Society at the time was sourcing its own corks; but here is another possibility..

As we all know, getting old corks out of ancient bottles is a bit of nightmare, as the waisted necks cause the corks to break. It's hard to tell for sure looking from the outside, but are the old Portuguese bottles slightly more waisted than the British ones?

Tom

Tom,
That is a very interesting quote from them. I am not 100% certain back then, but I would assume most of their corks would have been produced in Portugal. After all they make most of the natural corks in the world. and since it isn't specific to a certain year or a few years, as it's about a 30 year span, I would tend to agree with your statement

As we all know, getting old corks out of ancient bottles is a bit of nightmare, as the waisted necks cause the corks to break.

as being the most probable reason. Many old bottles had really flared necks where the cork expanded a lot inside the bottle. Making it nearly impossible to get them out in one piece with a corkscrew.

[jdaw1]

N.B. The above wines, bottled in Oporto, have very soft corks, and great care is necessary when drawing them before decanting.

As far as I can tell by a quick flick-through these words appeared in catalogues from September 1950 until October 1962.

[DRT]

N.B. The above wines, bottled in Oporto, have very soft corks, and great care is necessary when drawing them before decanting.

As far as I can tell by a quick flick-through these words appeared in catalogues from September 1950 until October 1962.

When I first read the "NB" on the photograph my first thought was that this was just a standard note along the same lines as "Vintage Port contains sediment and should be decanted" rather than being specific to the bottles listed above the note. JDAW's further observation seems to confirm this is the case and all thoughts that there is a difference between Portugues corks inserted in Portugal v Portugues corks inserted in the UK are simply daft

[uncle tom]

and all thoughts that there is a difference between Portugues corks inserted in Portugal v Portugues corks inserted in the UK are simply daft

Bear in mind that there's corks and there's corks - I'm told that Portuguese corks have seven quality grades.

I don't think one can assume that every bottling of vintage port has been stoppered with the very best grade of cork.

Tom

[DRT]

Tom,

Agreed, there are different qualities of corks. But it is not really plausible that the shipper would buy different corks for Oporto and UK bottlings. As you rightly point out UK bottlings have the same branded corks as their Oporto bottled sibblings so for each shipper in each year one would expect that the same cork was used regardless of where bottled. Where the variation is more likely to occur is where a particular shipper skimped on buying the best quality corks, in which case both Oporto and UK bottlings of that particular wine may be suspect.

Derek

[jdaw1]

My guess is that a shipper would order enough corks for the entire vintage, and have them branded in bulk. They would arrive at the shipper’s Gaia premises, this guess continues, in bulk probably in large sacks. There would be no local-/UK-use separation. Then, with each pipe the shipper would include a sack of enough corks for that pipe. So the UK and Oporto corks would be from the same batch, or from the same mixed-together batches.

Is this wrong?

[DRT]

My guess is that a shipper would order enough corks for the entire vintage, and have them branded in bulk. They would arrive at the shipper’s Gaia premises, this guess continues, in bulk probably in large sacks. There would be no local-/UK-use separation. Then, with each pipe the shipper would include a sack of enough corks for that pipe. So the UK and Oporto corks would be from the same batch, or from the same mixed-together batches.

Is this wrong?

I don't think so. It sounds very logical to me.

[Andy Velebil]

My guess is that a shipper would order enough corks for the entire vintage, and have them branded in bulk. They would arrive at the shipper’s Gaia premises, this guess continues, in bulk probably in large sacks. There would be no local-/UK-use separation. Then, with each pipe the shipper would include a sack of enough corks for that pipe. So the UK and Oporto corks would be from the same batch, or from the same mixed-together batches.

Is this wrong?

Nope, Makes sense to me too.

[uncle tom]

Those who have spent their entire career in the Gaia port trade, and are now over 60, should be able to recall the routine..

I would agree that if all the corks for both Uk and Oporto bottlings were sourced by the shipper, then it is very unlikely that there would be a quality difference.

That it is extremely rare to find a bottler's name branded on a cork, even though the capsule and label may make no mention of the shipper. leads me to believe that it was normal for the corks to be shipped, ready branded, with the pipes. However, there may have been some bottlers who preferred to use a different cork to the standard issue.

If the Wine Society preferred to bottle using harder corks than the standard offering, then their caution is entirely logical. On the other hand, it could also be that it is not the relative softness of the corks that prompted this caveat, but the different architecture of the bottle.

Tom

[uncle tom]

We are of course assuming that the corks were branded and shipped from Gaia.

It is also possible that they were shipped separately by the cork manufacturers, possibly unbranded; and that the responsibility for their branding and distribution was in the hands of the UK agents..

..we need to tap the wisdom of an old timer...!

Tom

[Portman]

Is it just me, or does the "bottled in Oporto" phrase contain just a whiff of the British superiority of centuries past? You know, from back in the day when the wines were mostly bottled in Britain because the Portuguese couldn't possibly do it themselves?

These bottles have very soft corks, and of course they were bottled in Oporto, not London.

(Having rolled the hand grenade into the room, Portman runs for the door)

[jdaw1]

Do we have any record of having opened a Wine Society bottling of a ≤1945 port? If so, did the cork resemble the OB version of same? 

[Alex Bridgeman]

Is it just me, or does the "bottled in Oporto" phrase contain just a whiff of the British superiority of centuries past? You know, from back in the day when the wines were mostly bottled in Britain because the Portuguese couldn't possibly do it themselves?

These bottles have very soft corks, and of course they were bottled in Oporto, not London.

I thought seriously about this, but I don't think it does. I think to some extent, wines being bottled in the UK, Belgium, Denmark or any of the many other countries outside Portugal where this practice used to take place simply reflects the fact that in days gone by, glass was fragile and wood was sturdy. Plus, if you ship a pipa of port, you get a much better ratio of wine weight : container weight than you do when you ship a case of port in bottle. It does gall me a little that when I buy a case of port I am paying for someone to ship roughly 9kg of wine and 14kg of glass and wood.

Perhaps we will suddenly get an environmental conscience and go back to shipping in bulk and refilling our own bottles.

Perhaps not.

[Glenn E.]

Perhaps we will suddenly get an environmental conscience and go back to shipping in bulk and refilling our own bottles.

Perhaps not.

I would love to be able to buy a small barrel of Port to have as my house Port. I, of course, would get a barrel of wood-aged Port, tap it, and just pour glasses straight from the tap! I assume that doing so would not be markedly different oxidation-wise than what the angel's share already causes.

[jdaw1]

Please will you folks be quiet. My ongoing squabble, on the subject of large bottles, with the IVDP and the inter-professional council seems to have stalled, again. These comments won’t help. Please be quiet.

Back to ‟soft corks”: who would know? 

[Andy Velebil]

Please will you folks be quiet. My ongoing squabble, on the subject of large bottles, with the IVDP and the inter-professional council seems to have stalled, again. These comments won’t help. Please be quiet.

Back to ‟soft corks”: who would know?

Thats not good. Could someone please roll the pipe over here, I need a fresh glass. Oh and please pass the soft rubber cork for the bung-hole.  

[DRT]

Please will you folks be quiet. My ongoing squabble, on the subject of large bottles, with the IVDP and the inter-professional council seems to have stalled, again. These comments won’t help. Please be quiet.

Perhaps we could persuade them to ship large bottles or new VP with an accompanying wooden cask of the same volume so that people like Glenn could immediately fill the cask with unfiltered juice and allow it to mature in wood until such times as they wanted to drink it?

Let me know if I'm not helping.

[Glenn E.]

Perhaps we could persuade them to ship large bottles

I believe Niepoort still has some that might qualify... aren't their demi-johns 10 liters? That would last me for a while!

[SD]

Perhaps "soft corks" are mentioned because most of the ports for sale were older, twenty-six or more years old when the corks are saturated with port and soft.