A magnum coming to auction this Saturday in Lincoln (Thos. Mawer & Son) provides more evidence to suggest that early Malvedos SQVP's were labelled as Crusted ports
- I have yet to find pre-Symington Malvedos labelled as 'vintage'
I was beginning to think that there had been no bottling of Crusted by Dow in 2001, as I could find no offers or TN's, and all the other recent years (up to 2002) have been well distributed and reported.
However, I found this .pdf which indicates a silver medal for the 2001 (awarded back in 2006)
I know of HR and HF (consistent with WS’s coding of other ports) only what we can both see. That section of the catalogue changed infrequently. There follow some other extracts.
From the Wine Society catalogue dated October 1929:
From the Wine Society catalogue dated December 1931:
All Wine Society bottlings had a code, presumably used for ordering and then for internal administration. With (so far) one exception each code references one port. Codes seem to have been allocated in approximately alphabetical order, so HE was probably the port they bought after HD (which happens to have been Croft 1924). The only vintage port for which the code was numeric appeared in the first preserved catalogue, so I suspect that the WS switched from numeric to alpha codes in the 1880s.
I have been tracking VP only, and it seems that one code is one port. However, a port can disappear from the catalogue (usually after a hand has drawn a line through it in the last catalogue in which it appears, suggesting ‘sold out’), and then reappear at a higher price some while later. So one code can reference a sequence of pipes or of bottlings.
I have not been tracking it closely for non-VP sorry.
I have been tracking VP only, and it seems that one code is one port. However, a port can disappear from the catalogue (usually after a hand has drawn a line through it in the last catalogue in which it appears, suggesting ‘sold out’), and then reappear at a higher price some while later. So one code can reference a sequence of pipes or of bottlings
I wonder if the line drawn through might mean 'we've sold enough for now, we'll re-offer the remains at a higher price in a few years time'
Have you found any clues as to why some have numbered codes and others have letters?
Tom
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly - W.S. Churchill
Noval 1875, for sale in the first catalogue I have (Dec 1880), had code ‟11”. Cockburn 1870 had code ‟K” in 1891 and March 1892; from June 1892 until last appearance in October 1893 it was ‟KK”. In September 1950 ‟KK” was used for Dow 1924, the only such re-use of a code yet seen (picture). All other VPs had unique two-character alpha codes (at least until the catalogues of 1950).
From the Wine Society catalogue dated February 1965:
Likewise, I suspect that the Roncao 1944 bottled 1948 is late-bottled, but by the standards of the day not late by much. However, the Malvedos 1959 definitely goes in the list.
(For these purposes this extract exhausts my Wine Society source.)