Do you find yourself drinking more, or less bottles of LBV?

[Roy Hersh]

Many of the current users of this Forum, have been here for a lot of years, some even since the very beginning ... 20 years ago, next month!

Your participation is truly appreciated. We also have lots of newbies on the site who mostly come here to "lurk" and just gain knowledge from what they find here. That's great and while it would be fun to see questions raised by those who are rank beginners, or in possession of intermediate level of Port wisdom, do not feel shy.

Now to the question: Whether you have 5 bottles of Port in your cellar or 500 (or more) do you find that in the past half decade, you have been drinking more or less Late Bottled Vintage Ports, than in the past?

This should make for very interesting reading. I will respond, after we have a bunch of responses from others.

Thank you!

[Mike J. W.]

I'm definitely drinking more LBV's than when I first started really getting into Port back in 2016 for the simple reason that I didn't really know what an LBV was. Then I found this forum and started reading it voraciously so I could learn as much as possible about Port. I pooh poohed LBV's when I initially read about them on here because I thought it should be all about Vintage Ports. And then I tried a few and found that with age, some of them were really good. With all of that being said, Tawnies, Colheitas and White Ports are even more of interest to me these days.

[Moses Botbol]

We drink more LBV's the last couple of years. Warre's being the most frequent followed by Dow. The biggest change in our port repertoire is non-Port fortified dessert wines from Portugal.

[Andy Velebil]

Probably drinking more LBV's now than before. I love VP's and love them more on the mature side. That said, they are getting harder to come by as daily drinkers and aren't as cheap as they used to be. So LBV's have been filling in for VP's. I enjoy the younger softer side to them they offer. And a plus is they last a few days in the fridge...when it isn't gone on day 1 that is!

[Lucas S]

I am pretty sure that if you were buying on release today, the best LBVs being sold, will in 20+ years give you a much higher ROI than the average VP. Simply because you can acquire them at a quarter of the price and, well, few people actually currently invest in cases of LBVs judging by their relative scarcity in the auction market. The value and quality can be truly excellent, and I will continue to try as many as I can.

That said, if buying ready to drink VPs at auction, that is still the best way to go for the time being, as it's so much cheaper than buying on release. New VPs tend to depreciate like a car for the first 7 years and then sort of sit there until they're expected to be ready. It's uncertain how long that party will last - case numbers are objectively very low for the good stuff and prices do inch steadily higher with a ~30 year lag.

LBVs are an arena where wineries who know what they are doing should know that they can try and really compete on a consistent basis, unlike the sporadic VP declarations that are perhaps more brand & status driven. If auction prices are any indication, the rich people are going to buy the Taylor/Fonseca/Noval Nacional VPs no matter what, but if you are Crasto or Pacheca or even Sandeman and you put out a good LBV, folks like us will talk about it and buy them. It's telling that Warre's VPs are very cheap at auction, but the LBVs are on the higher end of the range of prices, in part because of the bottle age yes - but they are so good. To the point that a 90s-00s Warre VP in the $30s at auction is only a few bucks more than an LBV bought retail for $28. I remember watching a youtube interview of Rupert Symington drinking a Dow's LBV, and one of the first things out of his mouth was that it's a "heckuva deal." They know what they've got.

Finally, there's something to be said for the convenience of LBV, as many stores will have one at a fair price. You don't really NEED to decant it properly in many cases or worry about cork breakage, TCA, provenance, and all that. Even as I ramp up my VP cellar over time, I would expect to still keep trying the LBVs.

[John M.]

Definitely less.

In my Port journey from the start I was a decided ruby side person with a limited budget. Finding properly aged VPs in a store is difficult and when you do most often provenance is a question because they are displayed standing (infamously my local wine store had a 1966 Fonseca that always was stood up and for a good part of that in a very sunny place - 30 years on do you think it was good/best it could be?>?>? - all for $299)). So LBVs it was. My favorites are Smith Woodhouse (esp 1995), Warre's and Crasto (I got a case annually and paid as little as $12.92 per bottle). My tasting group ended up drinking a lot of LBVs, some Ruby Reserves and the occasional young VP. We had tawnies but 10 year olds did not do much for me and were the same price as LBVs were ($16 to $30 20 years ago). 20 Year olds were the beginning of good to me but where in the $40 to $52 range (except for Niepoort, which was always a lot higher) so tawny was more of a financial reach.

As time has marched on I have discovered auctions, where one can obtain 30 year plus VPs are acceptable prices and I have a few more shekels in my pocket as well.

Then I discovered aged Whites, specifically what got me started was Portal 10 which one store had splits for $12/bottle and were they approachable. After a while that deal went away, but then I was looking for 10 year Whites in stores. Shortly thereafter, started drinking more tawnies as well; easier to obtain.

Presently, I primarily shop VPs at auction, buy tawnies in stores. But plenty of exceptions.

As for buying LBVs, Mike W, Lucas and I bought nearly 3 cases at auction---all were from the 80s and 90s, about a year ago. Between us we have 31 different Ports and we recently had a tasting of a dozen of them. Rarely buy an LBV in a store anymore (only if a new brand/odd year or if my company would enjoy it most) - and I still have quite a few but mostly 2000 and earlier. I also far prefer unfiltereds.

Lastly, I managed to save a Crasto LBV from each year for a sometime vertical. Think I am missing 2007 and anything from 2016, but have the rest from 2004.

[Edward J]

Before we started seriously gathering VP's, LBV were our go to Ports. Tasty and inexpensive for sure. Then as we progressed and discovered colheitas and Tawnies, red and white, LBV went by the wayside. I might keep a few on hand, to cook with or a glass to share with a non port drinker, but no I don't see us returning to our past ways of drinking more LBV.