1940 Cabral White Colheita

[Alex Bridgeman]

The bottle was one of the ones purchased at auction recently as a batch of unknown colheita. This bottles was sealed with a pale blue wax that had the year 1940 stamped on it. The short cork was branded "Porto Cabral". There was a very small amount of hard, black, flaky sediment in the bottle.

Very light in colour, straw / amber with a hint of green on the rim; 10% opaque. Concentrated over-ripe orange on the nose, amazingly like a botrysised white wine. Soft and silky entry with lots of concentrated orange on the palate but there is a dryness to the core of this wine to offset the intensity of the flavours. Lifting and fragrant aftertaste and finish. Delightful port. 91/100. Drunk 05-Dec-12 on a pop 'n' pour basis.

We concluded that this was a white colheita from the 1940 vintage, shipped by Cabral.

According to Liddell, Afonso do Vale Pereira Cabral inherited Quinta do Cachao from his father in 1881 and owned it until his death in 1946. Liddell also says that most of the vines planted at Cachao during this period were ungrafted, with treatment by carbon disulphide manging to keep the phylloxera louse at bay. When Cabral died in 1946, Messias bought the quinta. So this particular wine could be a "Nacional" 1940 white colheita.

Drunk as part of the Eclectic offline on 5th December 2012 at the Bunghole, Holborn.
Borges Muito Velho
Offley Boa Vista 1963 vintage port
Ramos Pinto 1959 colheita (bottled 1973)
Smith Woodhouse 1983

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