ThePortForum.com

I’ve been thinking about trying to organise a virtual Port tasting for friends and colleagues in November in aid of a charity. Probably will be supermarket Ports: nothing elaborate. I assume some members have been involved in sending out samples of wine since March 2020 and I wondered if anyone could suggest the most economical ways of doing it?

I have seen that you can buy 50 / 100 ml plastic pouches with a spout (so they are designed for liquids) for about 25p / 30p each. These look quite convenient since I think they are light-weight & I guess they wouldn’t really need any protection in the post beyond being in a suitable box. I also see that lots of wine producers now have nice boxes with test-tube like containers in them either for selling samples or to allow them to be taken on planes in hand-luggage. However, I can’t see anyone who is selling the empty bottles on line. Perhaps I am typing in the wrong words. Does anyone have any experience?

I suppose I could also buy some 50ml / 75ml / 100ml glass bottles but I think they are quite a bit of a faff to package because they are fragile, heavy and awkwardly-shaped.

My previous reply appears not to have made it on to the system, but -

- do not underestimate the capacity of royal mail to lose or break things containing wine (circa 10% each)
- even RMSD 24 is only on time 90% of the time and 1st class post only 50%
- send in PET not glass for this reason (ampulla are a good stockist)
- so hold back a suitable number to supply emergency spares.
- vessels with wide mouths for the ingress of liquid will save you much time and effort
- good luck in this worthy cause

The BFT in March last year was based around 50ml glass bottles packed into a suitable box and padded with shredded carboard. We used the Royal Mail 2nd class small packet service. Out of 300 packages, three were damaged. One because the delivery van drove over it and two because the packaging was insufficient causing one (out of seven) bottles in the box to break. We also lost 3 packages.

If I was doing a virtual port tasting for friends I would be less worried about presentation and would probably go for the pouch since these would be just so much easier and safer to send through the post although, as George suggests, do ensure you have sufficient stock to send replacements.

Alex's recent sample size is larger (c300 dispatched as opposed to c30) and thus to be preferred (and indeed the BFT samples were to be preferred both in content and packaging- very elegantly and safely presented).

Thank you very much. This is all very helpful!

This is how the BFT samples were distributed:

The pouches are definitely the most economical means. If you are only sending a few samples in each box then using the correct flat-ish boxes they can go as “large letter”. This is significantly cheaper than “small parcel” and they fit in a post box & through a letter box.

The boxes that are used to distributed free NHS lateral flow tests are (a) quite sturdy and (b) can be posted as a large letter so fit through a letterbox. They could be usefully repurposed to send Port samples in pouches.

DRT wrote: ↑15:22 Sun 17 Oct 2021 …and (b) can be posted as a large letter so fit through a letterbox

One of my more useful contributions to Test & Trace…

DRT wrote: ↑15:22 Sun 17 Oct 2021 The boxes that are used to distributed free NHS lateral flow tests are (a) quite sturdy and (b) can be posted as a large letter so fit through a letterbox. They could be usefully repurposed to send Port samples in pouches.

Does this mean that the members of the Port Forum should start requesting large numbers of PCR tests now?

Alex Bridgeman wrote: ↑13:54 Mon 18 Oct 2021

DRT wrote: ↑15:22 Sun 17 Oct 2021 The boxes that are used to distributed free NHS lateral flow tests are (a) quite sturdy and (b) can be posted as a large letter so fit through a letterbox. They could be usefully repurposed to send Port samples in pouches.

Does this mean that the members of the Port Forum should start requesting large numbers of PCR tests now?

PCRs come in a not very useful plastic bag.

I’m going to see how many pouches you can get in an LFT box…

Having now looked into this, the maximum size for a large letter is 35.3cm × 25cm × 2.5cm which is pretty decent and there are companies that make boxes up to that size. The maximum weight is 750g. Sounds like you could probably post about 10 5cl samples in one without too much trouble.