1963 Dow Vintage Port (large format)

[Bill Spohn]

1963 Dows Port – this was from a shipper called Burton-Dinn Inc. in San Francisco and it came in a very odd sized bottle that was familiar to me because I’d bought one on a cellar buy out around the turn of the century (opened and drunk about 3 years ago. It is a squat bottle of 1.8 litre capacity – more than a magnum but less than a double mag (or for that matter, a tappit hen). Medium garnet colour, a nose that was only slightly warm, and lovely pure figgy fruit with really excellent length, warm but not hot and with nutmeg hints right at the end. This shows considerably younger than the same wine from single bottle (which I tasted a year ago) and could age another decade or more with no problem. Beautiful wine. Obviously this was a standard size of bottle at least for this wine in this vintage – anyone else seen this or any other wine in a 1.8 before?

End bottle at the dinner I did 3 years ago. Now I have two empties - might make a pair of nice Port drinkers bed side reading lamps?

[Moses Botbol]

I've been working on getting a couple of those '63 Dows from someone I know for about a year!

[Roy Hersh]

Tregnums have 2.25 liters so looking forward to what this was.

[Bill Spohn]

Tregnums have 2.25 liters so looking forward to what this was.

Well, I now have experience with 4 in total of these bottles. May have been a special size requested by the shipper, perhaps.

I am using my two as candle holders at a dinner on Jan. 1!

[Andy Velebil]

If I am not mistaken, a prior discussion on this size for Port means this is most likely considered a Tappit Hen. As a Tappit Hen is around 2.25 liters, but can vary a bit in actual quantity back then.

[Glenn E.]

Isn't 2.25 a Tregnum, and a Tappit Hen is around 2.1?