Grahams 85, Fonseca 85, Taylors 85

[stuart14f]

I have 9 bottles of vintage port I'm looking to sell: 4 x Graham's '85, 3 x Fonseca '85, and 2 x Taylor's '85. I'm moving house soon and will no longer have an appropriate place to cellar them, and the money will be more useful to me. I will be keeping one of each type to enjoy with family/friends (I have 12 in total, selling 9). I'm located near Wakefield, UK.

My father bought a case of each brand and then shared them amongst me and my two siblings, hence the mix. Mine are kept in the original Fonseca '85 crate. After being purchased, they were stored in a garage cellar room. For the last 4 years they have been cellared in a cupboard in an unheated underground room in my current house.

I've attached a pic of a bottle from each port house. If there's anything else that you'd like to know, I'll do my best to share any more details!

[stuart14f]

Sorry to bump this thread, but is anybody interested in this selection of VP, or does anybody perhaps have any advice on what I should do?

Many thanks!


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[DaveRL]

These are lovely ports. The Fonseca in particular. They are, however, widely available still, and retail per bottle for around £60 each within a case (£60-75 as single bottles), and you could expect only perhaps half that in a private sale.

The best advice is usually to keep, drink and enjoy them - they will continue to improve over many decades, but I see you are moving home. Perhaps you could find a suitable place to store them?

If intent on selling, perhaps someone on here may get in contact. Give it a few days, it might take a while for your post to be widely seen.

Other than that, perhaps a wine merchant or auction house - I am unsure who might be you best bet but as a start know of Sandhams who are not so far away from Wakefield in Caistor, Lincolnshire. Perhaps they would be interested, or could advise.

[stuart14f]

Thanks for your reply, it's really helpful.

I wouldn't mind holding on to them all if it wasn't for the lack of a proper place to store them - I'm really worried about spoiling them. The best places I can think of would be an under-stairs cupboard (too much vibration?), a cupboard in an upstairs bedroom (too much temperature variation?), or an uninsulated brick outbuilding (seasonal temperature changes a problem?). Any ideas of how I could store them better in any of these locations?

I can't justify spending money on professional storage, so the best idea I had was to keep an enjoy a few of them, and sell the rest to somebody who could keep/enjoy them.


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[LGTrotter]

I would endorse the loveliness of these wines, and just for variation I would specially mention the Graham.

If you are thinking about storing them bear in mind that most people do not have perfect storage. Look for the least worst option, the cupboard under the stairs sounds best. Providing there are no central heating pipes. Leave them in their case, which helps a bit with insulation, in direct contact with the floor, particularly if it is solid.

Imperfect storage will not ruin a wine (providing it is not too extreme), it will simply age the wine slightly faster. And port is a pretty tough wine so will manage storage variation better than most.

On a personal note I wish my dad had given me some port, if he had I think I would have wanted to drink it.

[DRT]

If you are thinking about storing them bear in mind that most people do not have perfect storage. Look for the least worst option, the cupboard under the stairs sounds best. Providing there are no central heating pipes. Leave them in their case, which helps a bit with insulation, in direct contact with the floor, particularly if it is solid.

I completely agree with this. If you are storing 500 bottles then ideal conditions are a must as some bottles might outlive you. But nine bottles just need to avoid going bad over a few years, and if one or two do it is not a disaster.

If you do end up keeping them, which I think you should, you should try to find some styro-foam bottle shippers and use them to help minimize day to day and seasonal temperature fluctuations. A local wine merchant might be able to give or sell you these for almost nothing...

12CU_styro_s.jpg (112.55 KiB) Viewed 6013 times

[Alex Bridgeman]

And if you wrap the bottles in bubble wrap you'll dramatically reduce the vibration suffered by the bottles.

If you really wanted to, you could buy a new or second hand wine storage cabinet. You can get these as small as 20 bottle capacity for around £350-400 new or under £100 if second hand. Keep an eye on eBay for them, they come up occasionally.

[stuart14f]

Thank you all for the reassuring advice about storage.

The bottles are currently individually wrapped in corrugated cardboard tubes and kept inside the wooden crate. I like the idea of the styrofoam bottle shipper, it looks like a convenient way to store them - I'll check with my local wine merchant.

Sounds like I'm best off going with the under-stairs cupboard. There are no central heating pipes (the house has Eco 7 electric heating), and I think the floor in there is concrete.

I'll take them with me when we move, but if anybody is interested in buying some of them off me then please do send me a message. They'll be living in Suffolk shortly .