Pointless Statistics

[LGTrotter]

but it will be Camel Valley Bacchus rather than something from the Sussex Downs (although John Worontshak's wines are pretty good).

I have not had this for some years but I remember thinking it the best of the English sparklers, better than anything I've had from Sussex.

I suspect that it is more a reflection of the fact that it was a little over 5 years ago that Tom made me think about bringing some structure to my cellar and I substantially increased the number of bottles that I owned.

It would be wishful thinking on my part to substantially increase the size of my cellar, however I often wonder how to structure future purchases. I have tried to follow advice I have read from various sources (an old Hugh Johnson cellar book for instance). Still I find myself buying in a haphazard way, depending more on what seems like a bargain and on whim rather than the gaps that need filling. If there are rules of thumb, algorithms etc that people use I would be glad to hear them. I suspect that most people use my method, ie none.

[AHB]

I have tried to follow advice I have read from various sources (an old Hugh Johnson cellar book for instance). Still I find myself buying in a haphazard way, depending more on what seems like a bargain and on whim rather than the gaps that need filling. If there are rules of thumb, algorithms etc that people use I would be glad to hear them. I suspect that most people use my method, ie none.

There's always a place for buying on a whim, but if you'd like my thoughts on how I'd add an overlay of structure to your buying ambitions then drop me a PM and let me know roughly what you've got today, how old you are and how many bottles of port a year you drink (or would like to drink).

[LGTrotter]

Thank you Alex, I might just do this next time I do a roll call.

[uncle tom]

I thought I'd been very restrained this year, but have still managed to buy 149 bottles of VP over the last twelve months..

As per may habit of the last few years, I am once again on track to quaff 48 bottles of VP casually at home - 46 down and 2 to go..

Total stock of VP now at 5,743, which means my cellar gains one bottle year of maturation every 92 minutes. Average age of VP is currently 31 years, 10 months and 4 days, or 182,878 years in total.

Total number of different VPs is now 599 - what should my 600th be??

[/2alph]

I thought I'd been very restrained this year, but have still managed to buy 149 bottles of VP over the last twelve months..

As per may habit of the last few years, I am once again on track to quaff 48 bottles of VP casually at home - 46 down and 2 to go..

Total stock of VP now at 5,743, which means my cellar gains one bottle year of maturation every 92 minutes. Average age of VP is currently 31 years, 10 months and 4 days, or 182,878 years in total.

Total number of different VPs is now 599 - what should my 600th be??

Awesome number of Ports you have. Are you a winetrader? Can you post a picture of your cellar?

[uncle tom]

Are you a winetrader? Can you post a picture of your cellar?

I'm not a trader in the sense that I trade to make a profit, but regularly supply bottles for tastings etc.

I keep forgetting how to post photos on these forums - imagine three very crowded cellars, stuffed with racks and cases..

I don't have a romantic cellar with brick arches, forgotten cobweb covered bins and rusty iron gates - although I often sketch designs for a cellar in that mould that could house everything under one roof..

[CPR 1]

As the old year has drawn to a close I have decided to share my cellar stats having enjoyed this thread and the stats that you have all shared. So here goes:-

As at 1st Jan 2017 my cellar is made up of

74% port
18% Bordeaux
3% Rhone
3% Burgundy
2% Italy

Of the port
87% is Vintage (includes Vesuvio and Noval)
9% SQVP
3% is LBV
1% is crusted
1% is Tawny / Colheita

and 58% of the port is ready to drink if you consider it ready at 21!

The shipper with highest % in the cellar is Fonseca with 14% but when I look at what I have drunk from the cellar Graham 14% leads the way from Warre on 10%.

The empties by my back door indicate that the vintage that I drank the most of in 2016 was 1977 followed by 1970.

[/2alph]

With wich program do you manage your cellars?

[uncle tom]

With wich program do you manage your cellars?

I use Excel, aided by a raft of VBA code I've written myself

[LGTrotter]

As the old year has drawn to a close I have decided to share my cellar stats having enjoyed this thread and the stats that you have all shared. So here goes:-

As at 1st Jan 2017 my cellar is made up of

74% port
18% Bordeaux
3% Rhone
3% Burgundy
2% Italy

Of the port
87% is Vintage (includes Vesuvio and Noval)
9% SQVP
3% is LBV
1% is crusted
1% is Tawny / Colheita

and 58% of the port is ready to drink if you consider it ready at 21!

The shipper with highest % in the cellar is Fonseca with 14% but when I look at what I have drunk from the cellar Graham 14% leads the way from Warre on 10%.

The empties by my back door indicate that the vintage that I drank the most of in 2016 was 1977 followed by 1970.

Thanks for adding to this thread. Always fascinating to peek into other people's cellars.

[DRT]

My cellar contains roughly the equivalent of 835 bottles, of which...

>> 48% is Vintage Port
>> 34% is Bordeaux
>> 11% is Malt Whisky
>> 7% is Late Bottled Vintage Port

[PhilW]

As the old year has drawn to a close I have decided to share my cellar stats having enjoyed this thread and the stats that you have all shared.

Having similarly enjoyed reading such posts previously, I have decided to join in the sharing this year also. My cellar is >99% port, of which:

Port by type:
82% Vintage (including SQVP)
9% LBV
3% Crusted
6% Tawny/colheita/white

Vintage port by shipper:
The producers with highest representation for VP in my cellar are Fonseca and Warre, both at 23%, followed by Graham at 9%.

Vintage port by years:
The years with highest representation for VP in my cellar are 1970, 1977 and then 1985.

Oddities:
I currently have no Dow at all in my cellar; this is not due to a dislike!

[flash_uk]

Bandwagon.

61% Port
37% France
2% Italy

Every single bottle of port is bottle aged. Fonseca/FG leads the way on 13.4%, followed by Taylor on 6.7% then Dow on 5.3%. Graham, Warre, Croft, Calem, Quevedo, Noval, Vesuvio are all between 3 and 5%.

[JB vintage]

The first Vesuvio vintage was 1989...

There are actually a couple of Vesuvio's made before 1989. There is a Vesuvio Vintage 1863 (that I have not tasted) and a Vezuvio Vintage 1963 bottled by Ferreira (that I have tasted).

[DRT]

The first Vesuvio vintage was 1989...

There are actually a couple of Vesuvio's made before 1989. There is a Vesuvio Vintage 1863 (that I have not tasted) and a Vezuvio Vintage 1963 bottled by Ferreira (that I have tasted).

This is true, but I think both of those were wood aged ports rather than being true VP.

[JB vintage]

the 1963 is a true vintage port.
I have no indication that the 1863 is wood aged but cannot say for sure as I have only read about it.

[DRT]

Do you have any evidence that the Vesuvio 1963 is a true vintage port? I'm sure others here would be interested in that if it is true.

[Andy Velebil]

Vesuvio as a producer of grapes (and Port and who knows what else to whatever degree) has been around since 1565 if the tiles on the wall are correct. So it's entirely possible there were a lot more of Vesuvio made for in-house use, friends and family, and possible small sales over the decades.

[AHB]

Some more pointless statistics from me, as much for my benefit as for anyone else's so I can see how things have changed over the last 12 months.

This year I took 111 bottles out of my "cellar". Combined with the purchases during the year, this left a cellar which was composed of:
91% Port
3.5% Bordeaux
1.5% Champagne
1.0% Australian
0.5% Spanish
0.5% South African
2.0% Other things, each less than 0.5% individually (including English, Hungarian, US, NZ, Lebanese, Portuguese, Chilean)

I added 116 bottles of Port to the cellar this year with an average age of 42 years. The oldest added was from 1887 and the youngest from 2014.

Using the 21 year rule, 62% of my port is ready for drinking (it was 61% last year, implying that 1% of my cellar comes from the 1996 vintage).

The average age of the port in my cellar is 34 years, 185 days. The bottles in my cellar gain a year of bottle age every 12 months.

88% of the undrawn port corks I own are in 75cl bottles, 8% in half bottles and 4% magnum or larger. 69% of the containers hold vintage port (which includes Quinta do Noval but excludes Quinta do Vesuvio), 25% hold Single Quinta Vintage Port (including Quinta do Vesuvio), 5% hold LBV, 1% holds crusted and 1% holds other stuff. I own 3 bottles of port which would be considered colheita port under current regulations.

The shippers making up the largest share of my port cellar are Quinta do Vesuvio (15%), Fonseca and Graham (both 8%). Looking only at the port ready for drinking the picture changes slightly to be Fonseca (10%), Graham and Warre (both 9%).

8% of my port is from the 2011 vintage with another 8% from 1963 and 6% is from 1994.

In 2016 I added 501 notes to my tasting note database bringing my total number of tasting notes up to 4,132 built up over 13 years. These cover 1,508 different ports and a further 34 port-like wines such as South African fortifieds or Douro fortified Muscatel.

I tasted 137 ports for the first time in 2016 the most surprising of which was Smith Woodhouse 1966. The best of the ports new to me were a Krohn 1900 colheita and a Tuke Holdsworth 1927, closely followed by a half bottle of Dow 1920. The most unusual wine new to me last year was a Real Companhia Velha Porto Quinado over 60 year tawny - I've read about but never tried a quinado port before.

The oldest port I tasted in 2016 was from 1827. The age profile of the ports which had a vintage associated with them was:
0-10 years - 100
11-20 years - 52
21-30 years - 38
31-40 years - 72
41-50 years - 77
51-60 years - 50
61-70 years - 11
71-80 years - 10
81-90 years - 12
91-100 years - 4
101-150 years - 6
>150 years - 2

The wine I tasted most often in 2016 were Fonseca 1985 and Graham 1970 (both 9 times) followed by Fonseca 1963 and Warre 1970 (both 6 times). The vintages I tasted most often in 2016 were 1970 (36 times), 1966 (27 times) and 1963 / 1985 (both 26 times). The shippers tasted most frequently in 2016 were Graham (47 times), Quinta do Noval (44 times) and Fonseca (35 times).

The profile of wines tasted in 2016 is similar to the profile of wines across the entire 4,000+ tasting notes in my database which has the most frequently featured shipper as Graham (364 times), Taylor (326 times) and Warre (316 times). The most frequent vintages are 1970 (318 times), 1963 (256 times) and 1985 (210 times). The wines I have tasted most often are Fonseca 1985 (41 times), Graham 1970 (40 times) and Warre 1970 (38 times).

The wines I was most impressed by in 2016 (and I will update my footer soon!) were a bottle of Cockburn 1908 (99 points), Phil's bottle of Cockburn 1912 at the Xmas offline (98 points) and the glass of Scion I had at the Yeatman in June (also 98 points). The remaining profile of points I awarded to the ports I tried in 2016 was as follows:
97 - 8 times
96 - 1 time
95 - 25 times
94 - 33 times
93 - 33 times
92 - 45 times
91 - 41 times
90 - 44 times
89 - 47 times
88 - 48 times
87 - 48 times
86 - 31 times
85 - 28 times
84 - 23 times
83 - 7 times
82 - 4 times
81 - 4 times
80 - 1 time
79 - 0 times
78 - 2 times
76 - 1 time
68 - 1 time

[DRT]

my cellar gains one bottle year of maturation every 92 minutes.

The bottles in my cellar gain a year of bottle age every 12 months.

I can't quite work out whether or not these statements are contradictory of if AHB is just being his cheeky self

[Andy Velebil]

my cellar gains one bottle year of maturation every 92 minutes.

The bottles in my cellar gain a year of bottle age every 12 months.

I can't quite work out whether or not these statements are contradictory of if AHB is just being his cheeky self

Depends on what calendar he's using

[JB vintage]

Do you have any evidence that the Vesuvio 1963 is a true vintage port? I'm sure others here would be interested in that if it is true.

There is no indication whatsoever that it is not a vintage, see photo. I still have one in my cellar.

1963 vezuvio.JPG (28.8 KiB) Viewed 3316 times

[DRT]

WOW! Very interesting.

I think AHB (also vintage 1963) is now your new best friend!

[AHB]

It's nearly that time of year again...

[AHB]

Another year's worth of pointless statistics, as much for my benefit as for anyone else's so I can see how things have changed over the last 12 months.

At the end of this year, I have a cellar which is composed of:
90.8% Port (91% last year)
3.4% Bordeaux (3.5%)
1.2% Champagne (1.5%)
0.9% Australian (1.0%)
0.8% South African (0.5%)
0.7% Spain (0.5%)
2.2% Other (2.0%), each less than 0.5% individually (including English, Hungarian, US, NZ, Lebanese, Portuguese, Chilean)

I added 209 (116) bottles of Port to the cellar this year. I have no idea of their average age (42 years). The oldest added was from 1870 (1887) and the youngest from 2015.

Using the 21 year rule, 64% (62%) of my port is ready for drinking, implying that 2% of my cellar comes from the 1997 vintage.

The average age of the port in my cellar is 34 years and 2 days (34 years, 185 days).

89% (88%) of the undrawn port corks I own are in 75cl bottles, 7% (8%) in half bottles or smaller and 4% (4%) magnum or larger. 67% (69%) of the containers hold vintage port (which includes Quinta do Noval but excludes Quinta do Vesuvio), 26% (25%) hold Single Quinta Vintage Port (including Quinta do Vesuvio), 5% (5%) hold LBV, 1% (1%) hold crusted and 2% (1%) hold other stuff. I own 9 (3) bottles of port which would be considered colheita port under current regulations.

The shippers making up the largest share of my port cellar are Quinta do Vesuvio (14%, was 15%), Graham (9%, was 8%), Warre (8%, was 7%) and Fonseca (7%, was 8%). Looking only at the port ready for drinking the picture changes slightly to be Warre (10%, was 9%), Fonseca (9%, was 10%), Graham (9%, was 9%) and Vesuvio (9%, was 8%).

8% (8%) of my port is from the 2011 vintage with another 8% (8%) from 1963, 6% (6%) is from 1994.

Pointless statistics on my tasting notes will follow later.