Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers

[JB vintage]

I have bought Marks&Spencer's 2007 Vintage port, a BOB bottled by Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers. Is Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers a bottling company owned by TFP, or what is it? On the back of the bottle they are referring to winemaker David Guimaraens but it does not say anything about "produced by...", only "bottled by Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers".

[djewesbury]

= TFP.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Quinta and Vineyard Bottlers is the Taylor Fladgate bottling company. There is no clue which vineyards or which shipper's labels the current crop of Marks & Spencer's vintage ports are, but these used to be Morgan wines - perhaps they still are or perhaps these are now Skeffington wines. I have no idea.

[Glenn E.]

perhaps these are now Skeffington wines.

Does such a thing exist? I thought that Skeffington was a "catch all" label made with, essentially, leftovers.

[Alex Bridgeman]

perhaps these are now Skeffington wines.

Does such a thing exist? I thought that Skeffington was a "catch all" label made with, essentially, leftovers.

It is. But that doesn't stop it from being available to buyers looking for a BoB sourced from Taylor Fladgate, does it? (I admit, I may be missing something.)

[Glenn E.]

perhaps these are now Skeffington wines.

Does such a thing exist? I thought that Skeffington was a "catch all" label made with, essentially, leftovers.

It is. But that doesn't stop it from being available to buyers looking for a BoB sourced from Taylor Fladgate, does it? (I admit, I may be missing something.)

I could be missing something, too.

I guess what I'm thinking is that nothing is ever planned to be Skeffington until it is bottled as such, at which point it wouldn't be available to be re-branded as a BOB. So whatever Marks & Spencer has wouldn't be (to me) a Skeffington wine, but rather a generic TFP wine. Which is what a Skeffington wine is. Hrm. I seem to have confused myself even further.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I think that a wine can be relabelled, if required. TFP can register 12,000 bottles of 2011 vintage port as belonging to the Skeffington name. These sit in the TFP lodges until Marks & Spencers wine buyer comes along and says he wants 1,200 bottles of M&S own label 2011 VP. Taylor Fladgate then submit a label design to the IVDP which states the name of the bottler (required by law) and the vintage (required by law) and the style (required by law) and the name of the person buying the port (Marks & Spencer).

The IVDP approve and you then end up with the Skeffington ports being sold in the Marks & Spencer supermarkets.

This is no different to one of our mebers having persuaded one of the producers to label bottles as being "In celebration of the birth of XXX". Or the Joanna bottling of Cockburn 1967 (but that predates the IVDPs control of labels).

[Glenn E.]

I think that a wine can be relabelled, if required. TFP can register 12,000 bottles of 2011 vintage port as belonging to the Skeffington name.

My guess would be that those 12,000 bottles aren't registered with the IVDP as Skeffington, but rather as simply 2011 Vintage Port. But that's just a guess... so now I'm curious. If I have time today I'll see if I can figure anything out from the IVDP website.

[jdaw1]

Nothing is being re-labelled. Bottles lie in producers’ cellars, unlabelled. They are labelled only once.

(Nobody mention re-corking. Hush. You at the back: quiet!)

[RAYC]

Nothing is being re-labelled. Bottles lie in producers’ cellars, unlabelled. They are labelled only once.

(Nobody mention re-corking. Hush. You at the back: quiet!)

I think "relabelled" is being used colloquially - perhaps a better phrase would be whether they are "designated" as Skeffington when samples and numbers of bottles are submitted to IVDP for approval/registration as VP.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Nothing is being re-labelled. Bottles lie in producers’ cellars, unlabelled. They are labelled only once.

(Nobody mention re-corking. Hush. You at the back: quiet!)

I think "relabelled" is being used colloquially - perhaps a better phrase would be whether they are "designated" as Skeffington when samples and numbers of bottles are submitted to IVDP for approval/registration as VP.

Yes, you are right. Provided a label meets the legal requirements, which does not include the name of the shipper, the IVDP don't care what is on the label. Bottles registered as Quevedo 1974 colheita could be labelled as "The Port Society 1974 Colheita", for example, with Quevedo being noted in small letters somewhere on the label as the bottler.

[JB vintage]

When a company gets approval from IVDP they get approval for their wine and get the seal from IVDP. They can then call the wine whatever they want as long as they state the mandatory information on the label. In many cases the same wine goes to the ordinary house vintage and to the BOB, only the labels are different. An example is Fortnum & Mason Vintage 1999 BOB. It is bottled on a Niepoort bottle and on the cork it says Niepoort, but on the label it sais Fortnum & Mason. However, in some cases there is a special BOB blend. Difficult to know though, if it is a special blend or not.

Interestingly, IVDP does not separate different brands, only companies, for example SFE.

[Andy Velebil]

What may be getting missed here is some large "BOB" buyers have their own wine people who will request samples and then approve, reject, give input for new samples, etc. So they may be getting their own special blend, not some "left over" of a lesser quality Vintage Port.

so while some MAY be true "left overs" so to speak, some may be special blends specifically for said customer.

[Alex Bridgeman]

What may be getting missed here is some large "BOB" buyers have their own wine people who will request samples and then approve, reject, give input for new samples, etc. So they may be getting their own special blend, not some "left over" of a lesser quality Vintage Port.

so while some MAY be true "left overs" so to speak, some may be special blends specifically for said customer.

But this could only be true for Vintage Port if the buyer were working alongside the winemaker at the time of bottling. Once the port is in the bottle, any opportunity to blend would be lost.

There may be some BoB wine buyers who do look that far ahead (The Wine Society being one example) but I would imagine that most are looking to buy mature port today and will therefore have to choose from existing stocks in the Lodge. By way of illustration, I would be astonished if the recent appearance on the shelves of 1999 Sainsbury's Finest own label vintage port from SFE was anything other than an existing registered vintage port blend, that was registered with the IVDP in 2011 by Symington Family Estates Lda. SFE Lda will have internally identified the blend as Malvedos, Bomfim, Cavadinha, Smith Woodhouse, Quarles Harris etc but the IVDP will have this registered as approved vintage port on the books of SFE. Provided the label complies with IVDP rules (which it does), it is irrelevant what the port is called when it is sent to the shelves for sale.

[DRT]

I would be astonished if the recent appearance on the shelves of 1999 Sainsbury's Finest own label vintage port from SFE was anything other than an existing registered vintage port blend, that was registered with the IVDP in 2011 by Symington Family Estates Lda. SFE Lda will have internally identified the blend as Malvedos, Bomfim, Cavadinha, Smith Woodhouse, Quarles Harris etc but the IVDP will have this registered as approved vintage port on the books of SFE.

It is of course possible that SFE (and other producers) will produce additional VP blends that are destined for the BOB market and do not inherit a name/label until they are sold. That could explain why some of the more recent BOBs simply have "Vintage Port" on the cork whereas a few years ago it was common to pull the cork on a BOB and find a shipper's name.

[Glenn E.]

It is of course possible that SFE (and other producers) will produce additional VP blends that are destined for the BOB market and do not inherit a name/label until they are sold. That could explain why some of the more recent BOBs simply have "Vintage Port" on the cork whereas a few years ago it was common to pull the cork on a BOB and find a shipper's name.

Over Christmas I opened a 1994 Quarles Harris purchased from Trader Joe's and was astonished to find what appeared to be a brand new QH- and vintage-branded cork. Only 1 mm, perhaps 2 mm, had been soaked. The Port was delicious, so it had not been standing upright for 17 years. The only explanation I could come up with is that the bottle may have been part of stocks that had been held in the lodge for whatever reason, and was then re-corked with QH corks when TJ's placed its order.

If I were a major Port shipper, though, I would do exactly what Derek suggests. I'd have some "leftover" declared VP bottled with "Vintage Port" corks so that I could sell it to a some large chain of stores at some future date without having to do anything more than slap labels on the bottles. I believe that I've opened VP with a "Vintage Port" cork before... possibly even a Smith Woodhouse. It wouldn't take much to convince me that such a bottle might have been part of a program like this but was never ordered by a large chain store, so was instead labeled and sold as Smith Woodhouse (or whatever brand it actually was).

[DRT]

There appear to be quite a few BOBs and ex-cellars releases with new corks. I am led to believe that there are modern methods of re-corking that prevent oxygen entering the neck of the bottle, thereby eliminating the possibility of spoiling the VP during the process.

[Alex Bridgeman]

And it's not unusual for a Port Shipper to re-cork old cellar stocks before shipping if there is some doubt as to the ability of the old corks to withstand the trauma of travel.