Reliable online shops for vintage port

WJ Evans · Post by **WJ Evans** » Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:16 pm

I'm a couple hours away from the nearest shops and their selection is normally limited. Are there any reliable places to buy vintage port online, where I can feel confident that if it's a 2011 or 2003, etc., that it's been stored properly.

I'm not necessarily looking for the best bargain, just reliable online sellers where I can buy in quantity to back fill some of the older vintages.

I've tried searching as I would have thought this was a common question, but haven't had any luck finding threads discussing online sellers.

Wine.com seems to have the largest selection, but are they reliable in terms of the provenance, or selling stuff that's been sitting in a hot warehouse for a decade?

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:26 am

What state do you live in and do you know if they allow out of state shipments? This may be your biggest hurdle.

WJ Evans · Post by **WJ Evans** » Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:35 am

Andy Velebil wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:26 am What state do you live in and do you know if they allow out of state shipments? This may be your biggest hurdle.

I'm in Arkansas, but receive shipments in MO via Domaine.

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Sat Jul 17, 2021 7:00 am

Rough state for wine shipping. MO doesn’t allow out of state retailers to ship into the state. But it refers direct to consumers. It doesn’t seem to state if it goes to a business. You might want to look into it to make sure your shipment doesn’t get seized.

It does allow out of state wineries to do so but that won’t help for Port.

https://atc.dps.mo.gov/licensing/wine_d ... hipper.php

The other hard part is finding an out of state retail wine shop who will ship to MO. A lot of them have stopped shipping to certain states. I know K&L here in CA has in recent years.

It will take some leg work but I’d use winesearcher.com to find what bottles your looking for and then see if that wine shop will ship to you.

WJ Evans · Post by **WJ Evans** » Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:28 am

Most places ship to MO, and a lot to AR (but it's far more limited). I've received shipments from Benchmark, Chamber Street, several wine clubs, wine.com and others to AR or MO. So, generally speaking, I don't think shipping restrictions are going to be an issue.

My question is more about reliable shippers. If someone like Wine.com has 2003 Vintage port for sale, have they had it in their warehouse since it was released (2007???), or did they buy it on the open market, or does Warres continue to ship fresh on a regular basis.

I've largely used a local MO shop that will ship to me in AR or Wine.com for the bulk of my wine purchases, obviously having them hold shipments typically from sometime in May to October or so, as we can have long hot late spring/summers here, but those purchases have mostly been new releases so I'm not having to worry about if they've been properly stored over a decade or longer, before I purchased it.

What I'm really hoping to get direction on is if I can trust wine.com for older vintages, or what online sellers can be trusted when talking a 10-25+ year old vintage port.

I know on winebid and other places I might get the cheapest price, but they are often limited in qty (would like to back fill some older vintages in quantities of 40-60+ bottles, depending on if they are 750 or 357s) and I have to imagine it's going to be hit and miss on how they've been stored.

Post by **Glenn E.** » Sat Jul 17, 2021 10:58 am

Online auction sites (such as Winebid) are less reliable than online merchants simply because they can't be 100% certain that the bottle is good, either. They normally just auctioning it for someone else (the seller), so only the seller knows how the bottle was stored. That said, I have used Winebid many times with no problems at all.

I purchase Port online all the time because prices in Washington are so high due to state taxes. I don't recall ever having had a problem, though it's possible I've just forgotten one.

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Sat Jul 17, 2021 6:19 pm

A lot of discount shops, like wine.com, buy back vintages that are sitting in a distributors warehouse. Generally the distributor wants to clear the space so it’s sold cheaper than normal and savings passed on to the buyer. Or the producer has things they want to clear out and they make a deal with a company to take a good amount of it at discount. So there’s generally no worries about storage.

Auctions are a crap shoot. I’ve had mixed luck with winebid.

Eric Menchen · Post by **Eric Menchen** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:24 pm

WJ Evans wrote: ↑Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:28 am My question is more about reliable shippers. If someone like Wine.com has 2003 Vintage port for sale, have they had it in their warehouse since it was released (2007???), or did they buy it on the open market, or does Warres continue to ship fresh on a regular basis.

The producers do keep stocks which they continue to ship in some quantity. As for a listing at any of the major online retailers, I can't say, and they probably won't say, where it came from; although I do get a few mailings that specifically indicate if something is a direct/fresh shipment from the source. TCWC comes to mind in this category. The flip side of this is that then you are often purchasing before they even have the wines.

Bradley Bogdan · Post by **Bradley Bogdan** » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:33 am

I’d recommend EuropeanWineResource.com, if they’re willing to ship to you. Have ordered from them over the last decade and always gotten great bottles. Not usually the cheapest, they’re still usually very reasonably priced though. Tcwc is also a fav, as was previously mentioned.

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For The Love Of Port