Just how much is enough

[g-man]

If you guys were trying to find one wine to set aside and drink as you get older, what would it be and how many cases do you need to ensure that you could always drink this bottle without feeling too guilty it's your last few?

In terms of affordability and availability the F85 is one on my list and the wine I've designated as the wine I shall happily be drinking for the rest of my life.
As such, I have no amassed just under 3 cases of F85 but feel that the number is definitely not high enough for rest of life consumption.

I was thinking eventually of moving holdings up to 10 cases, but then started thinking is 120 bottles of 1 wine enough to last the rest of one's life?

what say you guys.

[mosesbotbol]

It comes down to math, how many bottles a year and how many years you plan to drink. If I could pick one wine, it would be 1970 Fonseca. It's impossible to have too much of this vintage.

[Glenn E.]

I don't drink as much Vintage Port on my own as the rest of you, so for me a case of Port would easily last 2 years if it were the only one I was opening. That's correct - I typically only open a bottle of Vintage Port every other month.

I figure I should probably allow for another 30 years of life (hopefully more!), so I would need 15 cases. Jeff you probably need at least 20.

[RAYC]

Variety is the spice of life....

You like Fonseca. OK....looking at long term potential, 85 is underpriced vs 70. But 70 (or even 66) will still last our lifetimes...and will be significantly more enjoyable for the foreseeable future.

So my advice....take about the same money, keep your 3 x F85, and get 2 x F70 and 2 x F66.

Want to spend more money? Multiply in that ratio to your heart's content (or at least as far as your wallet will let you!) plus add in a couple of cases of F63s!!

Plus remember: storage does funny things to wines. There are a lot of intangibles. Some you would expect to do well, but don't. Some you don't expect much, but over-perform. So spreading your purchases is a good long term tactic when looking for multiple cases of one wine (of course, if you can do a provenance test via a tasting and have a chance to get 5 cases at bargain price....ignore!)

[uncle tom]

The design of my cellar is based on the premise of delivering 108 bottles of mature vintage port every year.

When bottles come of age they pass from the Kindergarten and become Ladies in waiting.

Only two thirds of the Ladies get selected for incorporation in my Current drinking cellar - the rest get sold off. (Surplus bottles that are over 30 yrs old I classify as Old maids)

Of the 72 bottles that make the grade, 24 are allocated to social events, the rest for drinking at home.

The 48 bottles I drink at home each year are never over 60 years old, and rarely under 25.

Of all bottles drunk, only a third are under 40 years old, and one in six is over 60.

For home consumption I don't re-visit the same vintage port within 12 months of the previous occasion.

And I don't re-visit either the same vintage or the same shipper within six bottles of the previous occasion.

To focus my choices, I have a series of six attributes (or 'offences') that bottles must have, in order to qualify for Death row.

These are. in order:

First bottle (from a case, but odd lone bottles also qualify)
Over stock (either of the wine, or of the vintage)
Poor level (anything other than IN qualifies)
Not recently drunk (last encounter more than two years ago)
Drink up (any wine that has been flagged as being in decline, or the bottle has a seepage issue)
Last bottle (from a case, but lone bottles also qualify)

- So all quite simple and straitforward!

[RAYC]

It's actually quite scary, the more i think about it.

One bottle a month of your favourite port doesn't sound too OTT to me....

But that's a case per year for however many years you live....

[g-man]

yea i received my 09s yesterday so was down in the cellar and realized i didn't have enough port to drink!

[marc j.]

I'm thinking maybe 20 or so cases of '70 Niepoort should do the trick. On second thought, 30 cases seems a little safer...

[Alex Bridgeman]

It really does depend on what you enjoy doing - do you enjoy drinking one particular thing, or do you like variety? Would you become bored if the only vintage port you had to drink was Croft 1945 or would you be like a pig in poo if you had 35 cases of this in stock?

Personally, I like variety. While I don't have the same "six offences" as Tom, I do take a structured approach to the bottles I take out of stock for drinking in a year. My approach is based on the assumption that I will live and drink port for about another 30 years and on that basis I have the following rules, in order of priority:

1) Vintage mix - 3 bottles less than 11 years of age; 2 bottles 11-16 years; 4 17-21 years; 12 22-29 years; 20 30-39 years; 12 40-49 years; 4 50-59 years; 3 60-69 years; 1 70-79 years; 2 80-99 years; 2 >100 years; 7 from my birth year; 6 bottles that are NV. Total bottles taken from my stocks each year to be 78 for consumption at home or at offlines.

2) Minimal repeats - with the exception of the ports detailed in (3) below, no repeated ports in any calendar year.

3) Certain bottles where I have sufficient stocks to be able to open one or more a year, are automatically included on the year's drinking list.

4) Ease of access to the port is the next factor - if it's at home, or in easily accessible off-site storage it is more likely to be added to the year's drinking list than if I need to pull a case out of external storage and find somewhere to put the other 11 bottles that I don't drink.

5) LBV, Crusted, NV, Tawny and Colheita ports are put on the drinking list before vintage ports are considered.

6) And then the rest of the drinking list is populated with whatever takes my fancy.

I draw my drinking list up towards the end of the previous calendar year; right now I am starting to work on my 2013 drinking list so that I can figure out what bottles I need to pull out of external storage, and where I can put them until they are drunk.

[g-man]

It's interesting how people are perceiving this particular question.

If i had the space, I would certain hope to aim for Uncle Tom's cellar.

But I stand by my question: which is if you had that one bottle you'd love to open whenever you want to enjoy that fine bottle for the rest of your life, how many cases would you need.

AHB: I understand your approach, but I'm not saying this is the only wine you had the rest of your life rather it is the one you would ike to open to impress friends, port lovers, drink very well and can withstand the test of time.

The Croft 45 is certainly an admirable example but one that is unfortunately out of my budget if I intended to pick up at least 10 cases of.

The fonseca 85 is one where I feel is readily obtainable from good provenance, affordable and one that has the stuffing to go the distance. And one wher eI feel my 2+ cases is not enough to last me my lifetime.

The F70 is certainly another admirable choice, but with prices creeping up north of 130$ a bottle, looks like I'm goign to be stuck wiht my case for a bit.

[RAYC]

One port - drinking one bottle every couple of months or so - you'd end up having purchased at least 20 cases by the time your port-drinking days were over presumably (hopefully!)...if not more!

The question then becomes: do you look to acquire them all over the next few years, or are you happy to spread the purchases out over a longer period?

If you are set on F85, i'd have between say 4 and 8 cases in the cellar at any one point, and only then purchase further cases as you drink through them. However, i'd monitor prices and be ready to stock up in the event that prices started to head seriously northwards. I'd also be flexible if there was the chance to make a bulk purchase at a good price.

My guess is that the price increases in older ports (the best 70s, 66s etc) will be relatively greater than F85 over the next few years (F85 appears to be incredibly plentiful....), so diverting such a serious amount of cash to that particular port may not in the long run make as much sense as first acquiring what you want/need for your cellar more generally from those older vintages (F70 at that price could look quite good in 10 years....much better than F85 at current prices would be my bet, though i would love to be proved wrong!).

[g-man]

My guess is that the price increases in older ports (the best 70s, 66s etc) will be relatively greater than F85 over the next few years (F85 appears to be incredibly plentiful....), so diverting such a serious amount of cash to that particular port may not in the long run make as much sense as first acquiring what you want/need for your cellar more generally from those older vintages (F70 at that price could look quite good in 10 years....much better than F85 at current prices would be my bet, though i would love to be proved wrong!).

certianly interesting as I've seen since 2007 the price of the f 70 go from 100 - > 130
the f85s have gone from 65 - > 75

at current market I can buy almost 2 F85s for 1 f70

perhaps your buying strategy may prove to be more prudent and I shall try it out.
means buying 2-3 cases of F85 and 1 more case of F70 in the near future!

[Alex Bridgeman]

I guess what I was trying to say in my answer was that it depends - it purely and simply depends on how many of that special bottle you want to open each year. Is one bottle year enough? Then you need three cases. No, how about two a year? In which case you need six cases. Four bottles a year? Then twelve cases...

I have 9 different ports where I have sufficient quantities to open a bottle a year for pretty much the rest of my expected drinking life (and F85 is one of those ports, but sadly Croft '45 is not). The question I've posed to myself has always been slightly different to yours - my question has been "Which other ports do I want to be able to drink a bottle every year?" I've gone for breadth of variety rather than depth of my favourite vintage and shipper. Holding three cases of any particular port doesn't seem excessive to me, nor is it particularly difficult or costly to accumulate if we're talking about port like F85.

[g-man]

my question has been "Which other ports do I want to be able to drink a bottle every year?" I've gone for breadth of variety rather than depth of my favourite vintage and shipper.

I like that question!

if you don't mind, I think I shall take that as my quest going forward too!

I think for me

it's certainly
the Fonseca 1985
Fonseca 1970
Offley 1963
Quinta dos Murcas 10 yr tawny
Rozes 1994 LBV
Taylor 2009.

[DRT]

While I don't have the same "six offences" as Tom, I do take a structured approach to the bottles I take out of stock for drinking in a year.

So do I.

Every time I feel the urge to open a bottle of Port I interrogate myself with the same zeal and vigour as a US marine water-boarding a terrorist suspect. I approach this in a very structured and clinical way by asking myself:

1. Do you feel thirsty?

2. Is it after 11 a.m. (never been sure why I ask this one but I do it because it adds to the tension)

3. Which Ports do you have available within 20 yards of where you are sitting?

4. Which one do you want to open?

5. Open it! Open it now and stop f*%&%$£ around!!!! (not sure this one is actually a question)


I must say this method has very rarely resulted in a disappointing result.

[Andy Velebil]

While I don't have the same "six offences" as Tom, I do take a structured approach to the bottles I take out of stock for drinking in a year.

So do I.

Every time I feel the urge to open a bottle of Port I interrogate myself with the same zeal and vigour as a US marine water-boarding a terrorist suspect. I approach this in a very structured and clinical way by asking myself:

1. Do you feel thirsty?

2. Is it after 11 a.m. (never been sure why I ask this one but I do it because it adds to the tension)

3. Which Ports do you have available within 20 yards of where you are sitting?

4. Which one do you want to open?

5. Open it! Open it now and stop f*%&%$£ around!!!! (not sure this one is actually a question)


I must say this method has very rarely resulted in a disappointing result.

And here I thought I was the only one who thought this

[Zelandakh]

While I don't have the same "six offences" as Tom, I do take a structured approach to the bottles I take out of stock for drinking in a year.

So do I.

Every time I feel the urge to open a bottle of Port I interrogate myself with the same zeal and vigour as a US marine water-boarding a terrorist suspect. I approach this in a very structured and clinical way by asking myself:

1. Do you feel thirsty?

2. Is it after 11 a.m. (never been sure why I ask this one but I do it because it adds to the tension)

3. Which Ports do you have available within 20 yards of where you are sitting?

4. Which one do you want to open?

5. Open it! Open it now and stop f*%&%$£ around!!!! (not sure this one is actually a question)


I must say this method has very rarely resulted in a disappointing result.

1. Always.
2. Most days after 11am.
3. Eek - about 100 bottles from some Noval 1970s to some very young tawny.
4. Already done a Dow NV and started a Dow 1970 tonight so I think I'll stick with those.
5. That is my "If Derek was standing next to me, what would he say?" response.

Since I'm quite often in the "I'll open a bottle of port tonight" camp i.e. most nights get a bottle opening, I favour the NV midweek, LBV weekend and VP with guests / friends / family. The D70 has been opened for tomorrow as the planned Noval 1970 was planned apart from the whole "getting it up to temperature" bit.

[uncle tom]

1. Do you feel thirsty?

2. Is it after 11 a.m. (never been sure why I ask this one but I do it because it adds to the tension)

3. Which Ports do you have available within 20 yards of where you are sitting?

4. Which one do you want to open?

5. Open it! Open it now and stop f*%&%$£ around!!!! (not sure this one is actually a question)

1) I don't need to feel thirsty to drink port

2) or.. - is it before 6 a.m.?

3) Almost enough

4) Whatever the computer suggests

5) Just keep repeating the mantra: 'No bottle is too old or too precious to be drunk'

[Glenn E.]

1.) What Tom said.
2.) It's 5 o'clock somewhere.
3.) Sometimes none, but that is easily remedied.
4.) All of them... and none of them. Thus the need for cellar defenders - they also serve as sanity defenders when the choice is too difficult.
5.) There is no spoon.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[jdaw1]

I bought some decanters recently, and surely they need testing.

[Zelandakh]

I have a lovely decanter. He's 13 and is getting better at removing corks cleanly...