For The Love Of Port

Noticed earlier this week that there were some bottles of vintage port on eBay.

The picture I attached shows where some are at w 20 mins to go...

The bottle of '70 Fonseca has no selo and the cork just looks wrong. The bottles of '77 Graham's look fine but the $380 are just crazy. Got some earlier this year for $64 (think closer to $70 all in these days on WineBid).

Time to convert some older but not top notch VP into cash?

I just did the ebay search. It doesn't seem like there are any deals for port, most are listed at high buy-it-now prices. Plus you have to pay shipping. I thought I saw a decent price for a 20 year old Kopke, until I realized it was 375 ml.

The dodgy bottle of '70 Fonseca went for $142 (+$15 shipping) and the 3x'77 Grahams for $380 (+$22 shipping).

Pretty pricey both of them, i would say...

Those Graham's look like serious leakers. A lot of money for dodgy looking bottles

Especially dodgy since I thought that eBay didn't allow the sale of alcohol. At least at one point in time you were technically buying a vintage bottle, so if there was something wrong with the contents you couldn't appeal it to eBay as fraud.

Glenn E. wrote:At least at one point in time you were technically buying a vintage bottle, so if there was something wrong with the contents you couldn't appeal it to eBay as fraud.

I thought it was still like that?

New theme for virtual tasting event - Dodgy bottles from Ebay!

I bought one bottle of port on ebay and that was just for the label. It was a 1981 Fonseca in recognition of Lady Diana and Prince Charles wedding. 70 cl bottle. Wicked cool looking.

I believe licensed sellers can sell alcohol on eBay, private individuals can not. That part aside, I never found a good deal.

Miguel:

Looks like one of the hard plastic closures common for 70's bottlings(UK?)-very hard to remove.

Just seen on Taylor and Fonseca bottlings.

John, thanks for the info.
Was wondering what the deal was w that, as other pics i had seen of F70 didnt show it.
Guess that one bottle just missed the selo then.

Miguel Simoes wrote:John, thanks for the info.
Was wondering what the deal was w that, as other pics i had seen of F70 didnt show it.
Guess that one bottle just missed the selo then.

Selo comes off quite easily. Can't count how many bottles I have where the glue just gives from the 70's and older bottles.

Moses Botbol wrote:

Miguel Simoes wrote:John, thanks for the info.
Was wondering what the deal was w that, as other pics i had seen of F70 didnt show it.
Guess that one bottle just missed the selo then.

Selo comes off quite easily. Can't count how many bottles I have where the glue just gives from the 70's and older bottles.

If it was English bottled, there was never a selo in the first place

John Vachon wrote:Miguel:

Looks like one of the hard plastic closures common for 70's bottlings(UK?)-very hard to remove.

Just seen on Taylor and Fonseca bottlings.

I don't think they're restricted to just Taylor / Fonseca - i've certainly had Cockburn, Croft and Graham with these plastic closures as well. Am sure i've got some Dow 60 with them too.

Annoying to get off (though AHB claims to have cracked it!), but my gut feeling is that they keep the wine quite nicely - seem to have good success rates with them. Hard to tell though as just one of many variables....