Buy indivdual bottles, or a couple of cases?

[Aaron B.]

So I'm not exactly a port newbie, however I haven't had a lot of port tastings, although I do enjoy it and regularly go wine tasting. Now that I'm a bit older, and have a pretty good job and pay, I thought, why not get a case or two of something special that I can open up every year or two. So I thought, why not port! My thought was, I'm 30, why not get some 30 year old port, that way it ages with me. However, I have some limited wine storage, so it may not always be stored at proper temperatures. So, what are your recommendations? Should I just spend the money and get a new bottle every year for that special day until I get a good location for wine storage? Or would it better for me to get a couple of cases now since the price increases for the older bottles?

[Al B.]

I guess my answer depends very much on what sort of storage conditions you are able to keep your wine in. If you have a cool, dark cupboard which has a relatively stable temperature all year then you can probably look towards longer term storage even if the temperature (and humidity) aren't ideal. If you have the space, you could invest in a wine storage cabinet and then slowly buy wine and port to fill the cabinet (but based on the experience of most people here, buy the largest and most ridiculously over-sized cabinet that you can fit in to where you live!) or maybe even hire a small wine storage locker from one of the specialist wine storage companies based around LA.

If you don't have somewhere with reasonably stable temperatures then it's probably best buying to drink in the next couple of months or so. That doesn't stop you from picking up a bargain or two when you spot them, but probably does mean that it's not worth buying to store and drink over an extended number of years. If you do have or can get some reasonable storage facilities then you can start to take a longer view.

So what kind of port have you enjoyed the most in the past? Have you had the chance to try tawny against ruby, aged tawny against aged vintage port, young vintage port against late bottled vintage? There are so many options to choose from.

Personally, my taste is for vintage port and mature bottle-aged LBV. GIven that you said you were 30, if I was in your place and had some storage, I would be buying small (2-3 bottle) quantities of a handful of carefully selected 1982 ports (assuming that you weren't born in early Jan 1983). 1982 was a reasonable vintage, but did not produce any outstanding blockbuster ports that I have ever come across. I'd be targetting Churchill, Eira Velha (Martinez), Niepoort and Warre Bottle-Matured LBV. These will likely drink pretty well over the next 12 years. If you like tawny ports, I'd also add the Andresen 1982 colheita to the list, which I have found to be pretty impressive but this was bottled in 2007 so might be losing some of its freshness and focus now.

[Moses Botbol]

Depends on the per bottle price you want to pay. If you want older vintages (1963 and older), I'd start buying all you can as each year they are going up and in 10 years, 1963 will be way up there... Never mind 1955 and older. If looking for newer stuff, I'd concentrate on cases in OWC. So much easier to deal with than loose bottles, and is much cooler to look at.

You go for a 6 pack or 2 of Vesuvio every year and after a decade or two, you'll have a nice collection of great port!