KPB
Posts: 4649
Joined: 11/25/2012
From: Ithaca, New York
Status: offline
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@khmark, this is a tricky question to answer because many VPs actually are super delicious to drink young, although they won't show any of their mature nuance. So in some sense there is an early drinking window for producers like Taylor and Fonseca and Graham, and then a later one.
If I focus on Graham, where I've consumed something like 120 bottles of the 1985 VP -- an amazing VP -- it seems to me that it first start to come across as a reasonably mature wine quite a long time ago (in the winter we often have a VP open on the counter... and we get lots of winter in Ithaca. So it is not unusual to go through a bottle per week, and we probably drink a total of 10 or 12 per year... maybe 1/3 of those are this specific vintage and VP because we invariably enjoy them and they are often sold at fire-sale prices).
So, that VP is roughly 40 years old, yet I've managed to follow it starting no later than around 1995, age 10. Back then it was sweet and simple although already a nice sweet wine to pair with chocolate desserts. It shed its baby fat pretty quickly: By age 20 it was delicious and, more to the point, already showing some spice on the nose and the more complex flavors that come with age. At this point, I see it as being on its mature plateau and I bet that at age 55 or 60 it will be a tiny bit in decline, relative to all those other data points. Right now it still seems quite lively and healthy, so nowhere near decline.
I was born in 1955 and as it happens, that was a good year for VP. So I've also had a bunch of VPs from that vintage. What you notice is that this aging curve is pretty constant across the top producers. Today, a 1970 VP would be seeming fully mature and a tiny bit fragile, maybe a little amber around the rim. A 1965 VP would probably be noticeably slipping: pale in color, more than a hint of caramel, and less complex. The 1955 VPs are less exciting to me these days: I really enjoyed them 10 or 15 years ago, but no longer am interested in spending a fortune on something so fragile and somehow, so one-dimensional (if you think of VP as one-dimensional on release, a story entirely about sweet fruit juice and brandy, almost a cocktail.... the multidimensional story surfaces by age 20-25 and is very evident at age 40, but fading again by age 50 -- and sooner for a less prestigious VP -- and then basically you are back to a one-dimensional story eventually, that can be very pretty, yet is also very limited in some respects. And keep in mind that I'm focused on the very best producers. The story for some random minor producer would be harder to predict: some hold incredibly well... some just don't. And I'm focused on pristine bottles, whereas with age, more and more will be slightly corked or show other slight defects).
So I would go for a 20 or 25 year old bottle. Try to buy at auction and bid quite low -- the demand is absurdly small for these things, so low bids can actually succeed. Personally I might focus on Taylor, Graham, Fonseca and Dow, but you could also go after Noval. (I myself don't like the Warre style; many do and if you turn out to be a fan, them too).
If you bid on weird never-heard-of 25 year old VPs, you could probably find a bottle for $45, not counting any buyer's fee or shipping. If you go for 6, it might drop to maybe $40/bottle. And honestly, it would not be impossible to succeed in buying six of one of the heavy hitters for that price, too, if the vintage you aim for isn't one of the most famous.
_____________________________
Ken Birman
The Professor of Brettology
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RE: Port Season is officially OPEN! - 
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