For The Love Of Port

Here are pictures of recent bottlings.

Based on numerous conversations with John Cossart when he was alive, I have always understood the back story of the undated H & H Reservas to be that they were part of the inventory of H & H when it began in 1850, and that they were already old wines at that time. Though I don't doubt that John might have thrown out a date here and there, I don't recall him ever becoming very specific with me. It was simply that they were old in 1850 and that some might even have dated from the 18th century. It's my own belief that John didn't know very precisely the age of any of the wines. The Cossart family history at H & H covered just 70 years, and if any dates for these particular wines had survived in company records, I'd expect them to have surfaced some time ago. I also believe that the "Heavenly Quartet" that Alex Liddell appropriately immortalized was simply that part of that early inventory that had survived until the 1990s in sufficient quantities to still be sold. A few years earlier, for example, it might have been possible to buy the Terrantez Reserva, but that had been largely depleted by the late 90s. And so there was no Heavenly Quintet. After John Cossart's death in 2008, his son Ed and daughter Maria invited me to take a look at his wine collection, that I believe was entirely passed down to him by his father Peter, who was at H & H from 1938 until his death in 1991, and from whom John took over management of the company. Examples of all of the Heavenly Quartet were in the collection, along with a number of other wines. Most of the bottles had similar typewritten labels (the kinds of labels you'd buy in an office supply store in the 1950s, with red or blue borders), and these were in various states of disintegration. There were few proper H & H front labels. But many of the bottles had the usual H & H back labels that record dates of bottling and rebottling. Two things became apparent to me. The first was that, a long time ago, virtually all of these bottles had been taken out of H & H for Peter's personal collection. The second was that the family of wines to which the Heavenly Quartet belonged was larger than I had thought. If you'd been able to take a snapshot of the company's old undated Reservas 75 years ago, you probably would have found up to a dozen wines, rather than the five (including the Terrantez Reserva) that seems to have remained in the late 1990s. I ended up buying John's collection in its entirety, but it was frankly a mess. It hadn't been inventoried perhaps ever, and the markings on some bottles were virtually gone. And because none of the bottles had been recorked (let alone decanted, aired and rebottled) for decades, everything that was clearly identifiable was decanted and restored by being aired for more than 6 months with the great help of Ricardo Freitas. This project brought a few other members of the Reserva family to light, of which the Velho Verdelho, is the most significant, because there were a couple dozen bottles. Other wines that survived down to just a handful of bottles were: Velhissimo Doce, Boal AB, Velho Boal and, possibly the most extraordinary of all, an incredibly rich Malvasia Candida bottled in 1939. From the extreme sugar content, I suspect this is not only ancient but made by the classic technique of drying the grapes. Whether it's from Faja dos Padres, one could only imagine. To add to everyone's knowledge, I will try to put together some photos of front and back labels from John's collection.

Thanks for the info Mannie, nice to see you here.
Some photos would be nice, I've a couple bottles with the type of labels you mention but are illegible. I think one is a WS Boal and the other a Velho Verdelho, both have the RWC John Cossart Collection Label.
That Malvasia Candida sounds special!

Yes, nice to have Mannie here.

Great to have you onboard, Mannie!

Here's some photos of the pair of bottles I have.

Velho Verdelho?

Eric,

my guess would have been WS BOal - the similarities regarding bottling dates in comparison to my bottle are very high.

Here's the front of my WS.

Anyone know what the W. S. stands for?

Eric,

I believe you have labeled your two bottles correctly (the first's being the WS and the second the Velho Verdelho).

Cheers,
Mark

Another sample point... an (unfortunately empty) WS Boal...

Marco,

Glad that you still reside above ground. I thought you had fallen via Paul McCartney in Abbey Road.

I was in Funchal last week and visited HH. Got their pricelist too. LMK if you have any particular questions.

Justin,

prices have increased, haven't they....1375 for WS is tough...

Andreas Platt wrote:Justin,

prices have increased, haven't they....1375 for WS is tough...

Is that 1375 dollars or euros?

A,
Im not sure since I havent been previously keeping an eye on them. The brochure states that the WS Boal (bottled 1927) has less than 100 bottles remaining. This notation is not made on the Grand Old Boal, Malvazia or the Sercial Very old Reserves which lead me to believe that more than 100 bottles are still remaining of each of these three wines. Aside from that, I remember being pleased with the acidity of the 1976 Terrantez I tasted there. No amount of begging on my part led to a taste of any of the Very Old Reserve wines though :)

Steve Pollack wrote:

Andreas Platt wrote:Justin,

prices have increased, haven't they....1375 for WS is tough...

Is that 1375 dollars or euros?

Euros!

WOW! What were the prices on the other ancients? Thanks, Justin.

Grand Old Boal- 1,170 euros
Malvazia- 1,225 euros
Sercial- 880 euros

I bought the Malvazia reserve at H&H in 2009, then it was 650 euros, and so were the others.