For The Love Of Port

They are teasing being the first VP to be aged underwater, per their Instagram. Very little details, but more to be released soon.

400 years later, we are doing something new. The first Vintage Port that has been aged underwater. All will be revealed on International Ocean's Day, June 8th. Ready to dive with us?

Thoughts?

Andy Velebil wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 10:46 am They are teasing being the first VP to be aged underwater, per their Instagram. Very little details, but more to be released soon.

400 years later, we are doing something new. The first Vintage Port that has been aged underwater. All will be revealed on International Ocean's Day, June 8th. Ready to dive with us?

Thoughts?

"Age underwater" is a funny way of saying "the boat sank en route to England, but we found it and have salvaged the Port barrels."

They have been inspired by Leclerc-Briant that does that exact same thing with their Abyss Cuvée Champagne.

I wrote about it on my blog https://winebywalker.dk/?p=193 (delete the link mods if this against policy)

I think the Van Zellers and their Ports get something of a bad rap, or at least, are sort of ignored.

I don't know about the merit of this experiment specifically, but everything that they have been doing recently does suggest that they are working very hard over there on innovating and making better Ports. I say, keep an eye on them.

They are selling 35 out of 102 ocean-aged bottles of their 2020 VP for 1083 USDC each as NFTs.

https://winechain.co/drop-details/3145097

Kind of a shame it's that much and only such a small amount, because it means it will simply be a novelty for the rich. You can get like 4 GSTs for that much which will no doubt be more liquid and have more upside in terms of price.


Article (in portuguese):
https://tastingforall.pt/2023/06/02/van ... baquatico/

Needs to be aged underwater more like 20 years to really mean something. Who cares beyond the novelty on a couple of years underwater on a 30-50+ year aging port?

Lucas S wrote: ↑Tue Jun 06, 2023 11:35 pm ... which will no doubt be more liquid ...

Moses Botbol wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 11:40 am Needs to be aged underwater more like 20 years to really mean something. Who cares beyond the novelty on a couple of years underwater on a 30-50+ year aging port?

I dunno. Jefferson's Ocean bourbon has a very distinct character and those voyages are only about a year, as I recall.

Glenn E. wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:49 pm I dunno. Jefferson's Ocean bourbon has a very distinct character and those voyages are only about a year, as I recall.

But isn't that bouncing around the surface of the sea, subject to daily temperature fluctuations and shaking? That's a lot different than next to Davy Jones's locker.

Eric Menchen wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:14 pm

Glenn E. wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:49 pm I dunno. Jefferson's Ocean bourbon has a very distinct character and those voyages are only about a year, as I recall.

But isn't that bouncing around the surface of the sea, subject to daily temperature fluctuations and shaking? That's a lot different than next to Davy Jones's locker.

I don't know about bouncing around because the ship used is rather large, but yes it is subject to temperature fluctuations.

Yeah, just visually the level of wear and corrosion on the barrels from Jefferson’s Ocean hint they undergo a heck of a lot during their time on the boat. I’m not sure the bottom of the ocean is very similar. I suspect this is mostly novelty (especially combined with NFTs), but even if it’s not, might as well try it for a year or two before you commit to twenty?


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Mario Negreiros experimented with this (with red wine, not port). he aged wine underwater (Douro water that is) and the result compared to the same bottles in normal storage was that the underwater bottles seemed to have aged less but were far dirtier
after a short while on dry land there was no noticable difference anymore.

I can envision underwater storage in the wine business as a way to potentially lower costs on storage.

If you can drop pallets of wine to the seafloor with little worry of theft/damage it could be cost effective vs. on land storage.