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For your viewing pleasure, my mystery "Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port NV" turned out to be Taylor Fladgate Tawny -- straight up. Anyone have a suggestion on the age of this thing? I don't know if it's drinkable, given the cloudy nature of the wine, but I do hope to find out.

I love it!

that will go well with the croft 78 tawny I happen to have =)

"for the gentlemen of fine taste"

Drinkable...uh, probably but I wouldn't bet the bank it's still very tasty. Have a back up ready and waiting.

well the fact that it has a selo means that at the very oldest, this bottle should be after the 1940s =)

perhaps we could get someone from the TFP to check that selo # out ?

g-man wrote:well the fact that it has a selo means that at the very oldest, this bottle should be after the 1940s =)

perhaps we could get someone from the TFP to check that selo # out ?

Given the nature and condition of the bottle, i don't think it's worth the effort. Though I do wish we knew the age. Does anyone have a historical archive of how selos looked year-to-year?

FWIW the bottle (including red 4X feature) and capsule look very similar to the late 60s LBVs that i have tried from Taylor (i.e. released early 70s). Label looks like it could be older though.

Apparently the O.P.W. stands for "Oporto Partners' Wine" and was referred to as "Old Piss and Wind" by TFP directors!

I have had a number of Taylor aged tawny ports from the 1970's and the labels are a much older-looking style to this. The red disk with the 4X logo looks like the bottles of Taylor LBV I have had from the 1980's, so my money would be on this being from that decade.

The Taylor lodge has a few display cabinets with old bottles and labels on show so it might be worth an email to ask if they can give you a general idea of the age.

DRT wrote:The red disk with the 4X logo looks like the bottles of Taylor LBV I have had from the 1980's, so my money would be on this being from that decade.

Agreed.

SushiNorth wrote:Given the nature and condition of the bottle, i don't think it's worth the effort. Though I do wish we knew the age. Does anyone have a historical archive of how selos looked year-to-year?

This is an interesting question. I didn’t think there was that much variation in how they looked; unless I’m mistaken there have only been three major versions and I’m not sure how much variation in minor issues there has been between that (e.g. with how the numbers printed)?

JacobH wrote:

SushiNorth wrote:Given the nature and condition of the bottle, i don't think it's worth the effort. Though I do wish we knew the age. Does anyone have a historical archive of how selos looked year-to-year?

This is an interesting question. I didn’t think there was that much variation in how they looked; unless I’m mistaken there have only been three major versions and I’m not sure how much variation in minor issues there has been between that (e.g. with how the numbers printed)?

That's kind of what I was suggesting, that if we had a record of those minor changes, we could use selos to roughly gauge the age of some older bottles. I've another undated one, a mini, with a selo that would be fun to get an approximate date on.

SushiNorth wrote:That's kind of what I was suggesting, that if we had a record of those minor changes, we could use selos to roughly gauge the age of some older bottles. I've another undated one, a mini, with a selo that would be fun to get an approximate date on.

I wonder if jdaw1’s and DRT’s book research has entailed photographing any selos in sufficient detail to allow this to be constructed? Perhaps not, since their interest would have been in the genuine labels...

Andy Velebil wrote:Drinkable...uh, probably but I wouldn't bet the bank it's still very tasty. Have a back up ready and waiting.

Of the few old tawnies I’ve tried, I think the hit ratio has been about 50% being quite nice and about 50% being undrinkable, so it should be in with a fighting chance, if you happen to like bottle-matured tawnies

JacobH wrote:

SushiNorth wrote:That's kind of what I was suggesting, that if we had a record of those minor changes, we could use selos to roughly gauge the age of some older bottles. I've another undated one, a mini, with a selo that would be fun to get an approximate date on.

I wonder if jdaw1’s and DRT’s book research has entailed photographing any selos in sufficient detail to allow this to be constructed?

JacobH wrote:

SushiNorth wrote:That's kind of what I was suggesting, that if we had a record of those minor changes, we could use selos to roughly gauge the age of some older bottles. I've another undated one, a mini, with a selo that would be fun to get an approximate date on.

I wonder if jdaw1’s and DRT’s book research has entailed photographing any selos in sufficient detail to allow this to be constructed? Perhaps not, since their interest would have been in the genuine labels...

Perhaps that's going to be their follow-up book.

JacobH wrote:

SushiNorth wrote:That's kind of what I was suggesting, that if we had a record of those minor changes, we could use selos to roughly gauge the age of some older bottles. I've another undated one, a mini, with a selo that would be fun to get an approximate date on.

I wonder if jdaw1’s and DRT’s book research has entailed photographing any selos in sufficient detail to allow this to be constructed? Perhaps not, since their interest would have been in the genuine labels...

No.

AHB wrote:Perhaps that's going to be their follow-up book.

No.