Garrafeira - what's the point

[Steve Slatcher]

OK - I understand the definition of garrafeira, and how keeping 20 years in cask is a Good Thing, and how shippers would not do this if it were not a good wine to start with.

But I note that none of the garrafeira wines (e.g. a 1959 vintage bottled this century) I bought use the term on the label. I also note that an ABSL 1998 Sercial had no indication of another classification to hint that it was NOT garrafeira, and had a very similar looking label. And as I understand it the ABSL label is quite legal, if a little unusual.

So if the term garrafiera is not used on the label what is the point of making a big fuss about the it in legal sense? Am I missing something here?

[Peter Reutter]

Dear Steve,

you are right, the whole thing about how old a wine has to be to be called Garrafeira or Frasqueira or Harvest or Colheita is missleading in some way. Then add the fact, that some producers do not stick to the rules to much, further add the fact that the IVM (IVBAM now) is not making to much effort to enforce the rules and it ends up in chaos.

So the original rule was that Garrafeira was the same like Frasqueira meaning 20 years + in wood and then 2 years in bottle before it went to the market. The problem is that the word Garrafeira is so widely used in Portugal, usually for the private-reserve of a shipper or producer and indicating a higher level of quality, that it got watered down to a some kind of a quality grade.

Many of the shippers/producers of Madeira have long stopped using the term Garrafeira, even stopped using the term Frasqueira and just use Vintage Madeira. Of course this does not make too much sense, since Garrafeiras, Harvests and Colheitas are all from one Vintage. But aiming at an international market, of course Vintage sounds much better.

Harvests (5 to 10 years cask ageing) and Colheitas (12 to 18 years cask ageing) are something completely different, they don't come close to a good vintage, even though a good Colheita wine might in part be left in cask for continued ageing and later become a Vintage Madeira (=Garrafeira =Frasqueira), complicated isn't it?

The best thing to do is to look at the year of vintage and the year of bottling and ignore the rest on the label. So in your case of the ABSL 1998 Sercial this seems to be a Harvest wine. And yes ABSL's labeling is even more unusual than the others.

Hope this helps a little, if not then please read it up in the MWG http://www.madeirawineguide.com/10madei ... s_of_wine/

Best
Peter

[Steve Slatcher]

The best thing to do is to look at the year of vintage and the year of bottling and ignore the rest on the label.

That was exactly the conclusion I was coming to. Thank you for the confirmation that I was not missing something.

I had already read the MWG page you referred to BTW (and many others there - thanks for the site). It was just the absence of wine type information on the label I found strange. More so for the garrafeira wines than the ABSL harvest ones - you'd have thought the shippers would have been keen to point out that they were wines of the highest official quality level.

While I have your attention mayI ask a further more specific question that is only tenuously related? I also picked up from ABSL a Verdelho Reserva Velha, which I realise is officially equivalent to a 10yo. But do you know how old the component wines actually are approximately? I was told by Edmundo "I do not know - it is from the time of my Father", and you hint on your ABSL page that it might be around 60 years. But it would seem to me to be underselling such an old wine with such a modest label (not to mention the modest price).

[Peter Reutter]

The sixty years is what they told me too, but you are right, one would expect a higher price for a wine sixty years old. Their problem is that they lost all the records of the wine. For an official vintage date they would have to prove a vintage date to the IVM and since they can't all that's left to do for ABSL is to declare such a wine as Reserva Velha. What strikes me is, that they have a Old Reserve (=Velha) and an Extra Reserve. One would guess that the difference is in age, but I am not sure. I will ask them about all this and post back after my two week holiday.
Best
Peter

[Steve Slatcher]

Many thanks again Peter. Give Edmundo my regards! He might remember my Norwegian wife as he took great pleasure in explaining to her how to barbeque bacalao, complete with actions using props found around the tasting room. He didn't say "about 60 years" to us - just "from the time of my father" which is I guess a bit more ambiguous.

You might also like to check their production quantities. The numbers on your website correspond with those on their website, but I'm pretty sure we were told 3,000 bottles per annum. I may have misheard, or maybe they are scaling back.

Have a great holiday, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

[Peter Reutter]

Steve, you are right, strange coincidence of facts, even of complete text.
It looks like they copied some parts from the wineguide website after i posted it three years ago in the old version of the wineguide, and I really don't mind. But the original numbers were told to me by Edmundo in 2003, so I hope they are right. I even wouldn't be surprised if they do not know their exact production numbers themselves, since they do a very day-to-day business there. But who cares, as long as the wine is good?
Car is leaving, this was the last post, I will hear from you when I am back, hopefully also with some reply from the Olim brothers.
Best
Peter

[Peter Reutter]

So finally here is the answer from ABSL about their wines from Carlota T. Barros e Sousa Olim:

"In fact, those wines with lost records, whose origins come from our grandfather an great gradfather
The Old Reserve, are wines between 18/20 years old and the Extra Reserve are wines with more than 40 years old
They came from a single vintage
If compared with other old wines, we confirm that they are about the same ages, but can never be certain about a real date."

I hope this sheds some light on the age of the ABSL wines

Best
Peter

[Steve Slatcher]

It does. Thank you.