I recently bought an H&H Boal 1957 Garrafeira. It’s labeled as “H&H Garrafeira Collection” on the front. The bottling date is 07-04-1992.
Does anyone know much about this bottling?
Since it is labeled Garrafeira did H&H intend it to age/mature over a long time in the bottle? Did they filter these before bottling?
If these were bottled unfiltered to age further in glass, then this should be an interesting bottle. But if it was filtered and just lost in a warehouse for the last 25 years, then not so much.
Garrafeira is another term for Frasqueira. It means what we call a "vintage" Madeira. A single grape variety aged over 20 years in canteiro. "Vintage" cannot be used on labels of Madeira because the Port producers trademarked it. Not intended to age in bottle, they do change glacially. Becomes more elegant, less overtly fruity.
Eric Ifune wrote:Garrafeira is another term for Frasqueira. It means what we call a "vintage" Madeira. A single grape variety aged over 20 years in canteiro. "Vintage" cannot be used on labels of Madeira because the Port producers trademarked it. Not intended to age in bottle, they do change glacially. Becomes more elegant, less overtly fruity.
Thank you for the clarification Eric. I was thinking of the term Garrafeira as used with port (like Niepoort) where it is purposely aged in glass. I didn't realize that with Madeira is is synonymous with Frasqueira or "vintage".
So now I'm quite curious why this bottle has been languishing in the supply chain since 1992 ...
Unless H&H actually releases these decades after bottling.
An update to my ’mystery’. Visited H&H during the latest Fortification Tour. I told our host about my bottle - he said that H&H does not hold back bottles, but ships them right out. The older bottles being poured did not have bottling dates, so the conversation ended there. Later on I bought a bottle of 1954 Boal from their gift shop. It’s back panel indicates a bottling date of 8-6-1993.
So it would appear H&H does in fact hold bottles for a significant length of time at the lodge.
On a similar note, the 1976 Terrantez bottles I bought at Blandy’s were bottled in 1997 and re-corked in 2015.
