Exact vintage dates of Borges Family Reserves?

[Le Gamin de Paris]

It’s common knowledge that the Borges family reserves have approximate vintage dates: Pather 1720, Terrantez 1760, Boal 1780 Verdelho 1800, Sercial 1810 etc

Last week, I stumbled upon a book of fiction by Robert Joseph called Worlds apart which briefly mentions a bottle of a 1761 Borges Terrantez which came from Charles Blandy’s cellar.

You can find the relevant page of the book by doing a Google search for "1761 borges terrantez" (use the " ")

Could the exact dates of the Borges family reserves have been known at some point but then moved to the rounder decennial?

Anyone ever heard of more accurate dates for the Borges reserves?

[Eric Menchen]

Have you asked the author about that reference? https://www.robertjjoseph.com/contact.html

[Eric Ifune]

I think the general agreement is the dates are rounded off. These were probably purchased by HM Borges in the late 19th century, most probably from the growers. Something like, "This was great, great granddad's wine. Family lore says it was made this vintage. Not sure because great, great granddad was probably illiterate." The family reserve wines are the 1720 Pather, 1760 Terrantez, 1790 Terrantez, 1800 Verdelho, and 1810 Sercial. These are the wines HM Borges kept in his personal collection, not the company's stocks. Other wines may have more exact dates and/or not in the personal collection. Maybe because they weren't supposed to be commercialized, they didn't care about exact dates. Regarding Charles Blandy, I've seen several bottles of the 1862 Borges Terrantez in the Blandy family paradise in the lodge.

[Michael R]

Indeed, I have found it curious that, with the exception of several notable 19th century Terrantez vintages, most of the known pre-XX century Borges wines have dates that end in zero. The family wines mentioned by Andy & Eric, the recently surfaced family 1860 CTO Verdelho, the commercial 1790 Terrantez, 1830 Malvasia, 1840 Boal, 1850 Sercial, 1880 Boal/Verdelho/Malvasia to name a few. Seems they did not value the exact vintage records. BTW, most, if not all, of the commercial XIX century wines I have mentioned exist in both Vintage & Solera versions - another curiosity.

As far as the passage from the "World Apart" goes, it does not seem well researched. The action seems to take place in 1860 and they mention wines from Barbeito which was established in 1946, HM Borges who started his firm in 1877, and D'Oliveiras (misspelled in the book) that had not bottled under its own name for another 100 years. Also Abudarham, I believe, was founded several years later. The relative importance Charles Blandy in the book gives to Verdelho & Terrantez also does not seem to match what we know about that period, etc.

[Le Gamin de Paris]

Have you asked the author about that reference? https://www.robertjjoseph.com/contact.html

Hi Eric. Good idea... I sent the author a mail 1 week ago, but no reply so far.

I also agree with Michael's point that the dates of different shippers don't correlate, and that many shippers didn't exist when this fictional book was supposed to be set in.