Cockburn '66 - fact or fiction?

[Tom Archer]

A simple question:

Does this exist or not?

It was not declared, but Broadbent makes reference to tasting a sample in 1993 (he was very unimpressed..) and two UK dealers are listing it (one also lists the well known '67). - A couple of bottles are now coming to auction.

As far as I know, Cockburn was not listing single quintas at that time (they didn't buy Canais until 1989)

Can anyone shed light on this?

Tom

[Derek T.]

James Suckling, Wyndham Fletcher, Richard Mayson and Ben Howkins all say it wasn't declared. Broadbent says it wasn't shipped. No-one seems to say it wasn't made!

[Steven Kooij]

It might not have been made for release, but it could very well be that there were some pipes made for personal consumption, and somehow a few of these bottles made it onto the open market.

[Roy Hersh]

I was with Miguel Corte Real of Cockburn's last night. Sadly I did not get to read this will out of the country the past few days.

I know for sure that there was '66 produced and not released publically. That does not mean that bottles did not wind up reaching the marketplace though, as I have bottles that were never declared. It happens.

[Justin K]

On a similar note about 15 years ago I bought Dows 1940 another undeclared vintage. After a lot of research (pre-internet) Mr Symington wrote back to me to explain that sometimes Gentlemen's clubs or wine merchants would buy port in barrel then bottle and "declare" it themselves even, as in my case, cheekily sticking a Dows label on the bottle. Since Portugal exports all VP bottled I suppose this can no longer happen.