For The Love Of Port

Here we discuss what the oldest bottles of port or colheita are in our cellars, but that got me to wondering about the verticals that we put together. I know one port collector who loves Vargellas ports and he is 2 vintages away from having put together a complete vertical of Vargellas from 1958 through to 2004.

By comparison, my longest unbroken vertical is a complete 22 vintage, 24 year vertical of Vesuvio from 1989 to 2012. Must be time for another Vesuvio vertical tasting soon...

My second longest is Dow - 7 vintages from 1955 to 1972 (1955, 1958, 1960, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1972) and then 6 from 1977 to 1994 (1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1991, 1994). If I bought a Dow 1975 I would have a 14 vintage vertical.

What verticals do other people have in their cellars?

A great topic, Alex!

At the moment my only real vertical has a hole in it, so it isn't as long as it's going to be when I'm done. I have a Graham's vertical that currently runs from 1963 through 2007 (14 bottles). But I already have 1955 and 1948, have 1960 to fill the hole and 2011 on the way, and plan to pick up a 1945 when I can find one. So it will eventually run from WWII to present (19 bottles). I would stretch back to 1942 also, but that bottle is ~$1000 by itself.

(I've seen reference to 1952, 1957, and 1958 as well, but those appear to either be Malvedos or Crusted so I'm not currently pursuing those for my vertical.)

Hard to get a hold of old Vintage here in Quebec and I try to avoid weak bottles(especially in the 80's) too so I have some holes in many verticals.

My top 3 are
Vesuvio between 91 and 2005
Niepoort from 1987
Fonseca from 1985

Off hand, I think I have all or most Grahams vintages from 1955 to 1994.

At this point my longest vertical is of Taylor, from 1900 to 2007 (almost..I'm still looking for 1940 & 1942!) I also have a complete vertical of Grahams from 1955-2007, as well as a Warres vertical from 1958-2007.

Marc J. wrote:At this point my longest vertical is of Taylor, from 1900 to 2007 (almost..I'm still looking for 1940 & 1942!) I also have a complete vertical of Grahams from 1955-2007, as well as a Warres vertical from 1958-2007.

Just curious, but do you (or you, Moses) have the '57 and '58? Like I said above I've seen reference to them, but can't tell for sure whether they're fully declared Graham's Ports or just a Malvedos or Crusted.

Yikes, I have no idea as I haven't really tried to assemble a particular vertical. Like a few others here, it is probably Quinta do Vesuvio, 1990 to something in the 2000s. I don't have any 1975s since drinking a Croft a few years ago, and not many 1980s.

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Glenn E. wrote:

Marc J. wrote:At this point my longest vertical is of Taylor, from 1900 to 2007 (almost..I'm still looking for 1940 & 1942!) I also have a complete vertical of Grahams from 1955-2007, as well as a Warres vertical from 1958-2007.

Just curious, but do you (or you, Moses) have the '57 and '58? Like I said above I've seen reference to them, but can't tell for sure whether they're fully declared Graham's Ports or just a Malvedos or Crusted.

If I recall correctly those are Malvedos VP years. I believe that there weren't any other "fully declared" Grahams vintages between 1955 & 1960. I may be wrong, but that's what I recall.

Marc J. wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:

Marc J. wrote:At this point my longest vertical is of Taylor, from 1900 to 2007 (almost..I'm still looking for 1940 & 1942!) I also have a complete vertical of Grahams from 1955-2007, as well as a Warres vertical from 1958-2007.

Just curious, but do you (or you, Moses) have the '57 and '58? Like I said above I've seen reference to them, but can't tell for sure whether they're fully declared Graham's Ports or just a Malvedos or Crusted.

If I recall correctly those are Malvedos VP years. I believe that there weren't any other "fully declared" Grahams vintages between 1955 & 1960. I may be wrong, but that's what I recall.

I am not aware of any regular Graham's released during this time either. So I'd assume they were Malvedos as well.

Eric Menchen wrote:Yikes, I have no idea as I haven't really tried to assemble a particular vertical. Like a few others here, it is probably Quinta do Vesuvio, 1990 to something in the 2000s. I don't have any 1975s since drinking a Croft a few years ago, and not many 1980s.

It turns out a vertical of Vesuvio I hosted in the last year consumed my one bottle of 1992, so even that is limited. I can do Warres 1977-1994, SW 1983-2003, ... I have lots of holes, only Warres in 1980, but no 1997 of that; no Taylor from the 1980s; missing 2003 for Fonseca ...

Not sure it is complete, but I possess 15 or 16 vintages of Fonseca from 1963-2011.

Roy Hersh wrote:Not sure it is complete, but I possess 15 or 16 vintages of Fonseca from 1963-2011.

63, 66, 70, 75, 77, 80, 83, 85, 92, 94, 97, 00, 03, 07, 11 would be 15, so sounds like you're complete.

Glenn E. wrote:

Roy Hersh wrote:Not sure it is complete, but I possess 15 or 16 vintages of Fonseca from 1963-2011.

63, 66, 70, 75, 77, 80, 83, 85, 92, 94, 97, 00, 03, 07, 11 would be 15, so sounds like you're complete.

You forgot the 09 Fonseca Glenn.

I was struggling to think of anything that I actually had consecutive vintages of, then I finally remembered that I have Novals from 2000, 03 and 04.

Paul Fountain wrote:

Glenn E. wrote:

Roy Hersh wrote:Not sure it is complete, but I possess 15 or 16 vintages of Fonseca from 1963-2011.

63, 66, 70, 75, 77, 80, 83, 85, 92, 94, 97, 00, 03, 07, 11 would be 15, so sounds like you're complete.

You forgot the 09 Fonseca Glenn.

Oh, duh. Right!

I always remember that it was only a partial declaration, but can then never remember who declared and who didn't! Warre is what always trips me up and makes me think that it was the Symingtons who declared.

Moses Botbol wrote:Off hand, I think I have all or most Grahams vintages from 1955 to 1994.

Added some '75 mag's so even more complete....

Glenn was correct in his own way, as I did not purchase any 2009s; Fonseca or otherwise.

Bit late on parade here, but I think I have every declared vintage of Cockburn from 1890 to 2007..

..must buy some of the '11..!

Tom Archer wrote:Bit late on parade here, but I think I have every declared vintage of Cockburn from 1890 to 2007.. ..must buy some of the '11..!

Don't you worry about that Tom. If you open all those bottles from 1890 to 2007, I'll bring the 2011.

Eric Menchen wrote:

Tom Archer wrote:Bit late on parade here, but I think I have every declared vintage of Cockburn from 1890 to 2007.. ..must buy some of the '11..!

Don't you worry about that Tom. If you open all those bottles from 1890 to 2007, I'll bring the 2011.

I'll bring a back up of 1983

Moses Botbol wrote:

Eric Menchen wrote:

Tom Archer wrote:Bit late on parade here, but I think I have every declared vintage of Cockburn from 1890 to 2007.. ..must buy some of the '11..!

Don't you worry about that Tom. If you open all those bottles from 1890 to 2007, I'll bring the 2011.

I'll bring a back up of 1983

I'll bring the 2012...just to see if it can last as long as the old one.