Strange prices for Graham Ports

[Michael M.]

Last week we had from Graham: Six Grapes, 2001 LBV, 2001 Crusted. Regular prices importer Graham for Germany in order: 25 EUR, 21,50 EUR, 19 EUR. So why strange? I think, the best wine is the cheapast und the waekest wine is the most expensive one. Six Grapes, for my palate a solid Ruby, I like for current drinking. But 25 EUR is far too much. 2001 LBV, weak and simple on the first day. On day 2 I liked it. 2001 Crusted. I liked a lot the edginess (?) of fruit, what remembers me a young VP. At 19 EUR a decent deal imo. A propos Crusted Port: What grapes for this one? Better than those for LBV as a reminiscence of long british Port Tradition? What do you think?

Michael

[g-man]

Last week we had from Graham: Six Grapes, 2001 LBV, 2001 Crusted. Regular prices importer Graham for Germany in order: 25 EUR, 21,50 EUR, 19 EUR. So why strange? I think, the best wine is the cheapast und the waekest wine is the most expensive one. Six Grapes, for my palate a solid Ruby, I like for current drinking. But 25 EUR is far too much. 2001 LBV, weak and simple on the first day. On day 2 I liked it. 2001 Crusted. I liked a lot the edginess (?) of fruit, what remembers me a young VP. At 19 EUR a decent deal imo. A propos Crusted Port: What grapes for this one? Better than those for LBV as a reminiscence of long british Port Tradition? What do you think?

Michael

what were the bottle sizes?
I've only ever seen the six grapes as a half bottle and it goes for 11$ US here ... 25 EUR is indeed steep then.

[Michael M.]

Normal size each- 0,75l

[RonnieRoots]

That's really strange. Six Grapes is a 13 euro port, whereas the LBV is usually around 16. The crusted (which is IMO by far the best of the three) sells for 20-21 here.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I don't know the answer to Michael's question on the grapes used for Crusted Production, but my guess would be that these were generally better than those used for LBV.

The logic for my guess is that since Crusted ports are (a) made in much smaller quantities than LBVs and (b) Crusteds are made from blends across 2-3 years then you should have the opportunitity to take small lottes of high quality and blend them together to give enough wine to bottle as Crusted Port.

Alex