Baga perhaps?

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Caves da Montanha Garrafeira Particular Tinto Colheita de 1957

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My friend, Samu, once more decided to serve a blind wine when I was at his place for dinner. He tends to serve ancient and obscure Portuguese wines - as some here might remember from past posts. Even before a glass was shoved into my hand I blurted my guess: Baga from the '40s. It turns out, I wasn't far off. We had Baga (presumably) from the '50s. I think that was a pretty good guess for not even having smelled the wine...

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Everything endeared me about the wine: the grimy bottle, the pale but healthy red colour, the magical scent and vibrant palate.

If it is, indeed, Baga, I can very well understand why it is said to need decades to become drinkable: this was not a tame or soft wine even with half a century in the bottle. It had a captivating aged and elegantly rustic perfume of leather and lingonberry with darker, almost liquorice scents peeking out on occasion. It was bright, lively, tannic and acidic, deliciously astringent yet seductive at the same time (I love the taste of paradoxes). It has a bright, pure, refreshing, palate-cleansing aftertaste that lasts almost forever.

I thought this was amazing, though I imagine that few apart from myself and Samu would enjoy such rustic, aged delights.
 
sounds delish to me, Otto.

this had probably been brought up before, but i wonder about the wax vis a vis extended aging.....am guessing it must help keep the cork in decent shape a bit longer than without it?
 
You sure that dust wasn't sprayed on?

My guess would be baga too, but there are loads of Portuguese varieties that could age indefinately.

Funny you should mention this. I have my own baga note coming a bit later when I post the next set of notes.
 
Joel, my understanding re: wax is that the only things it does are prevent beasties from gnawing on the cork and irritate bottle owners.
 
I thought the purpose of wax was to aggravate the person opening the bottle.

What else is grown in Bairrada than Baga? All mentions of the producer were from Bairrada, so we assumed this was from Baga, but I really don't know.
 
i've seen people put the corkscrew right thru the wax and pull the cork out that way....don't know if older wax behaves the same though.

not to swerve too far from what's inside the bottle here, but are there never any reduction issues with wax capsules, or is there some permeability to the wax?
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
I have been told to simply ignore the wax and corkscrew away!
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This is how I handled opening my bottles of '06 Foillard and '03 Puffeney Arbois VV last week. What it saves you is the time (and slightly less mess) of chipping away at the wax. Still, no matter what, the fucking wax seems to find it's way into the bottle and then glass.
 
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