1920 Bual

I tasted the 2020 bottling of the 1920 Bual when the wine was 100 years old, after having spent 97 years in cask. For winemaker Francisco Albuquerque, this was the last bottling, and the rest (the other half of the wine) was put in glass demijohns and was at the limit, with 22% alcohol and very high dry extract, with notes of old wood, smoke, iodine and low tide. It's intense and pungent, with a volatile twist (it has only 1.56 grams of volatile acidity). It has very high extract—you can chew it—and it stays with you for a very long time. This is also a wine to sip that would last forever. 1,199 bottles produced.

Bottled in 2020. Snazzy new label, the obverse of the old stencilled design. I much appreciated this, brought by a cousin of the Blandys, but for me it had spent just a bit too long in cask.There is richness and complexity but just a bit too much painful concentration. I see we have five tasting notes on this wine, all enthusiastic from 2010 to 2020. So perhaps I'm being too picky and spoilt, but it reminds me of some of the seriously old sherries that get that too-long-in-cask character. (JR)

Bottled in 2020. This particular bottling has aged for 100 years in American oak casks and then, from 1 March 2017, in glass demijohns. Only 1,199 bottles released. TA 10.74 g/l, VA 1.44 g/l, pH 3.53, RS 110 g/l, volumetric mass 1,027.69 g/l. Deep mahogany colour. Very very quiet on the nose when first poured. Dark. Smells like cherry wood. Then it unhurriedly starts to offer glimpses of its century of secrets. Christmas cake and cherry tobacco. Maraschino. Dark chocolate. Stem ginger. Cinnamon bark. Salty quinine. The masses of acidity begin to build, in a silent roar. It feels, in the mouth, like a carved-emerald bolt of shocking purity. Lime marmalade. Dried lime peel. Dill, tarragon, fennel, caraway, cumin. The spices whorl up and up and catch the light, as if we've walked into an old chapel and disturbed a century of dust. A century of memories. Sweet but it’s bones are dry and the vibrating edges of it are dry. Firm; fierce yet full of grace; the slender power of a ballerina. Rose petals and pine oil. Agonisingly, I had no time to really sit with this wine. My tasting note simply doesn't do it justice. (TC)