Borges

[nicnoks]

I'm in strange country ”“ but obviously friendly.
A good friend asked me if I could help dispose of her deceased father's 'whiskey': now who could resist? !
unfortunately good manners and an annoying conscience has inhibited disposal in the most obvious way, nonetheless I've been surprised at how difficult it is to get anywhere near the 'retail' values for the stuff, even to the extent of being forced to adopt some of it myself [at going rates of course]. From research we're unlikely to get more than 70% of retail.
When I first saw them some of these 'whiskeys' [mainly single malts] were a bit of a surprise: a Castarede Bas Armangnac whiskey and 3 other whiskeys called Croft LBV 1987, Borges 1980 and Calem vintage 1985.
Having dealt with the misunderstandings I've managed a rough retail valuation for the armangnac [£60], Croft [£18] and Calem [£48] but (unless anyone disagrees with these valuations) this query is about the other bottle. Its been stored in a Calem box and is labelled ‟Vintage Port 1980 ”“ BORGES PORTO etc”: only wine-searcher seems to list it at all [at £60] but I was checking my work on your most helpful site and can't find Borges for 1980 ”“ is it a pseudonym for something else or are my eyes suffering from too much exposure to Malt?
Once we've discovered what it is, would there be problems selling it on eg Ebay?

[JacobH]

Hi, welcome to .

The 1980 is likely to be from Borges & Irmão, so I don't think you're mis-reading it (they also have quite distinctive labels). I've only tried a single bottle from Borges but looking at the other notes on this site, they all seem quite light, early-maturing Ports. Even at full retail prices, £60 seems quite high for it, though I could imagine someone like Seckford's trying to sell it at about £30-35.

The problem with selling on Ebay is the huge shipping costs for posting a bottle of wine (and the fact that you have to sell the bottle and not the contents to get around their ban on selling alcohol...) which would put me off buying, e.g. an £18 bottle of Port, but then some sellers do seem to realise mad prices for their wines, so it might be worth a punt.

Another damper on the prices you might get is that Port has the additional problem that a buyer has no way of telling how single bottles have been stored: they could have been laid down in a cellar or kept upright in a drinks cabinet next to a radiator. The single bottles the merchants tend to sell are usually from full cases which have a much better chance of being in drinkable condition.

[nicnoks]

Thanks for the most helpful reply. No surprise to hear of the perils of storage [but I do need to check on that] and selling.
Unfortunately the link to Borges you sent is unreadable by this pc [despite all morning spent upgrading my software] - any chance please of an alternative link to one of the pages on their website?
If the price for the Borges I found is that far adrift, are the prices for the others out too? : Croft LBV '87 [£18] and Calem vintage '85 [£48].

[JacobH]

Unfortunately, the Borges is one of those flash-heavy websites which doesn't seem to have any direct links inside. It's a bit of a problem with other Port sites, too...

I think £48 for the Cálem is perhaps a touch steep, though it depends a bit on what sort of "retail" you are interested in: for Berry's or Fortnum's it would be cheap; for a City wine-merchant, perhaps about £40 would be more realistic; and for a larger broker-style merchant, perhaps £35 or so. In a straight auction, the price could be much, much lower.

Old LBVs don't really get offered for sale, retail, very often but that price looks about right. It looks like we're arranging an old LBV tasting in January, so if you're near London and you'd like to diversify out of Scotch then there might be a good way of disposing of it coming up...

[Alex Bridgeman]

Your Borges 1980 is about to dramatically fall in value. It might be retailing at around £60 today but that is because it is probably being supported in price by the market for 30th birthday presents. If you stick it onto eBay right now, you might just get lucky.

Neither of your other two bottles are of great collectors' or drinkers' interest. The Calem 1985 is unusual in the UK, so you might find some interest. The LBV is probably less likely to attract interest.

As a rule of thumb, I would suggest that you could realistically expect to get 50% of retail value for each of the bottles, but might get lucky on eBay.

Alex

[nicnoks]

As with everyone else no doubt I've been a wee bit busy over Christmas, so apologies for this delayed thank you for the most helpful postings. For completeness the bottles were stored under the stairs but upright: but there's little sign of ullage.

Thanks again
Barry