ThePortForum.com

Hi all ers,

Just registered here although I've been reading TPF tasting notes and threads for over a year now. The site and your discussions have been most helpful in finding great wines and buys many many times..
I'm a port enthusiast from Finland which has it's limitations - what with having a monopoly in alcohol retail and huge taxes But we do our best

Anyways I've been stocking up on port as well as experiences with different wines for a while now and hopefully will also be able to contribute tasting notes etc. in the future too.
Mainly I've been buying my port from the UK and also from Portugal, whenever good deals can be had

Back on topic, I thought I'd seek expert help with a recent purchase I made. I bought a batch of Noval 66 recently for a decent price, but the pics the broker sent me of the bottles turned out quite interesting (see attached pics)! As you can see the little band on the bottles says Nacional and also the capsule reads Noval 1966 Nacional...

Exhaustive googling ensued and I found a few pics of Nacional '66 bottles - I think the capsules look remarkably similar and some bottles also seem to have an identical band to the bottles I purchased. Provenance isn't completely clear although the broker said the bottles have been untouched in their cellar for the last 10-15 years.

So, before I get to cracking one open and having a look at the cork, what do you guys think? Are these Nacionals, regular Noval VPs or something else (hopefully not the latter!)?


Cheers
Heikki

I know what I'd ask is if you could cut away part of the capsule to shine a really bright light ont he cork, but I dont know if that's an option =(

otherwise it's tough to find out what's really in there.

oh and welcome!

Lucky boy!

Though these mistakes can happen with Noval / Noval Nacional, as i have also experienced

Welcome to the Port Forum.

It is surely hard to say wether these are originals, but I would guess they are. If I would try to fake something, I would definitely go for the labels as well. Additionally I would rather try to fake 63s as they are much more valuable.

Looks to me that you really got lucky.

Axel

Many thanks for the comments!

Agreed Axel, that's what I thought as well. Besides, they weren't marketed to me as Nacional so kind of beats the purpose of faking them eh?

The bottles will stay in London at least till the end of the year and I'll think about transporting them after that. So if anyone is interested in them I'm open to suggestions (perhaps I could sell / trade 1-2 pcs).. Please pm if interested.

Have you opened one? If so, what was the result?

Is it just me or do the capsules look a bit iffy?, Especially in profile.

I think they look normal for Noval bottlings from that era and are very similar (perhaps identical) to the Nacional 1963 I opened in Oporto in January this year.

I bow to your superior judgement. I have never opened any 1963 Noval Nacional. But if I did it I would come to you for your perspicacity, sagacity and something else ending in 'icty' which escapes me at the moment.

LGTrotter wrote:...something else ending in 'icty' which escapes me at the moment.

Drinking capacity?

LGTrotter wrote:I would come to you for your ... sagacity

Are you suggesting that Derek lives in an exclusive area for the over 50's?

PhilW wrote:

LGTrotter wrote:I would come to you for your ... sagacity

Are you suggesting that Derek lives in an exclusive area for the over 50's?

Boom boom!