A wine for the Gods - Borges Terrantez 1846
A glass of this wonderful Borges Terrantez 1846 was served at the very end of a fine Boxing Day dinner. It followed a stellar array of Champagnes, Burgundies and Port, each amazing in its own right. Unfortunately, my attention span wasn’t anywhere near what it should have been to give this the long, contemplative due it deserved. FORTUNATELY, I had tasted the same wine previously in 2018 when I did have my full wits about me so I have an earlier impression to supplement this less than ideal recent experience. Terrantez always makes me a little sad. Once considered Madeira’s greatest grapes it is nearly extinct there now. The 1852 Odium epidemic wiped out Terrantez because its thin skin was particularly susceptible to fungal rot. That, and low, erratic yields discouraged it from being replanted post-Phylloxera later in the century. Consequently, Terrantez was victimized, like many of history’s greatest grapes, as much by these diseases as the human choice not to repla...