Quevedo Garrafeira

[JacobH]

I thought this was a sufficiently exciting topic to justify its own thread.

As you can see from this VWP virtual tasting in the planning forum, Quevedo has made some garrafeira Port. This is the rarest style of Port. The idea, as I understand it, is that the Port is first matured in barrels like a tawny before being transferred to large glass demijohns for further maturation. It is then decanted into bottles (when, of course, it can have a third period of maturation, if you so choose).

We are most familiar with Niepoort’s garrafeiras. I’ve only tried the 1977 which is one of the best Ports I’ve drunk. I’m therefore very interested that Quevedo are having a go at this style.

A few thoughts:

1. When I visited the Niepoort lodge, I got the impression that the garrafeira production was very tied into their general tawny Port production in that that most of the Ports they were maturing in demijohns would be blended into more traditional tawny reserves. I may have been wrong about this, but it didn’t seem to me the case that they were laying down wine at harvest or after a few years in the barrel to be turned into garrafeira but rather choosing their best demijohn’ed wine to make it. I wonder if this makes it hard to get a garrafeira production off the ground for other shippers who don’t have this whole process? I haven’t heard of demijohns being mentioned by any other shipper, although, of course, holding tawny Port in air-tight containers is quite common on a larger scale (e.g. stainless steel tanks).

2. Niepoort rightly regards their garrafeiras as one of their most prestigious Ports. They are released infrequently and after considerable maturation. I wonder, therefore, how the IVDP is going to approach requests for approval, especially from wines which are much younger and which might not be aimed at “the best of the best” end of the market? Perhaps this isn’t a good analogy but the current situation with garrafeira seems to me to be like as if the only Vintage Port that existed was the Noval Nacional which would only be produced following a “best of the decade” harvest. That’s not to say that Quevedo isn’t aiming at that: I just don’t know and am contemplating the situation generally.

3. Am I right in thinking no-one else beyond Neipoort has tried to make one of these? I know old bottles with “garrafeira” on the label crop up from time-to-time but I thought the consensus was that the word was being used in a non-technical sense to refer to private bottlings of family reserves, generally colheitas.

Any other thoughts?

[Andy Velebil]

Niepoort is not the only one who's tried to make them. However, they are the only one who's marketed them successfully over many years.

This type of Port is not cheap to do and it's a crap-shoot if it is going to turn out well enough decades later to bottle on its own. I would suspect it was far cheaper to start on a large scale way back decades ago than to do so now. Especially during various war times and other low financial markets when Port didn't sell to well anyways and one had extra Port sitting around. That's pure speculation and one would really need to talk to someone with direct knowledge from the 30's-60's.

I'm going to be a little controversial for sake of discussion. Here's the issue with them, they are basically a high quality LBV that has been aged in a large glass bottle for a very long time. Scores/impressions of them are often so clouded by label bias it's difficult to get a real sense of their true quality. I would propose a double-blind tasting of 2-3 against some older top notch VP's just to see how they really stack up.

[JacobH]

Niepoort is not the only one who's tried to make them. However, they are the only one who's marketed them successfully over many years.

Would you be able to give more details? Do you know if anyone else has reserves ageing in big glass?

This type of Port is not cheap to do and it's a crap-shoot if it is going to turn out well enough decades later to bottle on its own. I would suspect it was far cheaper to start on a large scale way back decades ago than to do so now. Especially during various war times and other low financial markets when Port didn't sell to well anyways and one had extra Port sitting around. That's pure speculation and one would really need to talk to someone with direct knowledge from the 30's-60's.

This is why I was thinking the way you would have to do it would be to integrate it into your tawny production process, so that you are selecting the best wines for bottling as garrafeira and blending the others back into your other tawnies. The idea of filling, say, 100 demijohns with a view to producing 100-odd cases of garrafeira in 30 years’ time seems impossibly risky, as you say.

I'm going to be a little controversial for sake of discussion. Here's the issue with them, they are basically a high quality LBV that has been aged in a large glass bottle for a very long time. Scores/impressions of them are often so clouded by label bias it's difficult to get a real sense of their true quality. I would propose a double-blind tasting of 2-3 against some older top notch VP's just to see how they really stack up.

I suppose one problem is that with only one producer who is clearly selecting very good wines to make the garrafeira, it is impossible to know how much of the quality comes from the method and how much comes from the selection.

[slateshalehead]

I would be interested to know where Quevedo found enough glass demijohns to produce enough garrafeira, or if they commissioned new bottles at some point. I remember reading somewhere that Niepoort's demijohns were all very old (some 100+) and that no one was making the bottles anymore. That might mean that Quevedo is using a slightly different type of demijohn from Niepoort, which from photographs and video I've seen are rather squat, flat-bottomed, and cylindrical in shape (as opposed to the more spherical ones that seem plentiful for other wine and liquids producers).

That being said, as a younger enthusiast tasting a garrafeira is on my bucket list, so I'm excited by the news that Quevedo is potentially entering that space. If I was in the UK, I would have already signed up for the VWP tasting!

[uncle tom]

I would be interested to know where Quevedo found enough glass demijohns to produce enough garrafeira, or if they commissioned new bottles at some point.

I don't know what Oscar has used, but there's probably no compelling need to use glass. Although a little less romantic, stainless tanks would probably serve just as well.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Scores/impressions of them are often so clouded by label bias it's difficult to get a real sense of their true quality. I would propose a double-blind tasting of 2-3 against some older top notch VP's just to see how they really stack up.

Ive no doubt you’re right on this point, but I know I’ve tasted a Niepoort Garrafeira completely blind on at least one occasion, maybe more. I was visiting Axel in Germany and he poured me a glass of Port and asked me to guess what it was. It completely foxed me - I couldn’t even figure out whether it was a colheita or a vintage which is normally pretty straightforward. It was lovely, it had a beautiful elegance and purity to it and blind, I gave it 95/100 - it was the 1948 Garrafeira.

I also tasted the 1940 completely blind. Again, a glass given to me and I was asked what it was. Having learned from the 1948 I guessed it to be a garrafeira from 1977, it had so much youth and vigour. It turned out to be the 1940! Blind I scored that glass 99/100; it was an astonishing wine.

[Andy Velebil]

I would be interested to know where Quevedo found enough glass demijohns to produce enough garrafeira, or if they commissioned new bottles at some point.

I don't know what Oscar has used, but there's probably no compelling need to use glass. Although a little less romantic, stainless tanks would probably serve just as well.

I would suspect you’re right. So long as both are sealed with the same type of closure (cork).

[JacobH]

Presumably it’s an IVDP requirement to use glass, even if it doesn’t make much difference? I assume, as Andy says, it is necessary to have a semi-permeable seal, though. Haven’t they bottled some 9l bottles of their VP? Using standard 9l bottles might be an obvious candidate since they probably are relatively easy to acquire and handle.

[winesecretary]

Once can buy 23 litre glass carboys reasonably easily via the net (although delivery is another matter entirely).

[uncle tom]

Once can buy 23 litre glass carboys reasonably easily via the net (although delivery is another matter entirely).

15L Nebuchadnezzar bottles are more regular in shape - easier to ship and store.

[benread]

I’m very excited by this tasting, having never tried a garrafeira. Does anyone with more knowledge than me know how representative of the style Oscar’s might be given their relative youth? (I’ve purchased my pack already so this is a question for my own reference come the tasting).

Thank you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Glenn E.]

This type of Port is not cheap to do and it's a crap-shoot if it is going to turn out well enough decades later to bottle on its own. I would suspect it was far cheaper to start on a large scale way back decades ago than to do so now. Especially during various war times and other low financial markets when Port didn't sell to well anyways and one had extra Port sitting around. That's pure speculation and one would really need to talk to someone with direct knowledge from the 30's-60's.

This is why I was thinking the way you would have to do it would be to integrate it into your tawny production process, so that you are selecting the best wines for bottling as garrafeira and blending the others back into your other tawnies. The idea of filling, say, 100 demijohns with a view to producing 100-odd cases of garrafeira in 30 years’ time seems impossibly risky, as you say.

The problem with this theory is that Garrafeira - as it is usually made - is much closer to VP than to Tawny Port. Or as Andy said, it's basically an LBV (made with VP-quality juice) that has been aged somewhat differently than a normal VP.

I wouldn't blend Garrafeira into Tawny stocks to make... anything. That would totally throw off the character of the Tawny. I suppose you could blend it into a Ruby Reserve if you wanted to give it more character, but that's an awfully expensive add-in for a Ruby Reserve.

My understanding is that everything they have in demi-johns is destined to become Garrafeira. The process is realistically too expensive to be blended into anything else even if the wine turns out to be less-than-spectacular. In the space where Niepoort keeps their demi-johns, they could instead keep tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of liters of Colheita aging in pipes or tonels.

[PhilW]

I'm going to be a little controversial for sake of discussion. Here's the issue with them, they are basically a high quality LBV that has been aged in a large glass bottle for a very long time. Scores/impressions of them are often so clouded by label bias it's difficult to get a real sense of their true quality. I would propose a double-blind tasting of 2-3 against some older top notch VP's just to see how they really stack up.

I think a fairer comparison would be a late-bottled VP, aged in very large format bottles prior to smaller-bottle rebottling.
This is based on:
- my expectation of high quality wines being selected for use in garrafeira as used in VP, rather than the potentially lesser wines selected for an LBV.
- the time in cask for Niepoort garrafeiras has varied from 3-10yrs, though is typically around 5yr
- I have no idea whether the demijohn shape matters; I suspect other large formats could be used similarly

Scores/impressions of them are often so clouded by label bias it's difficult to get a real sense of their true quality. I would propose a double-blind tasting of 2-3 against some older top notch VP's just to see how they really stack up.

Yes please; whether blind or not, I'm in. When/where?

[slateshalehead]

- I have no idea whether the demijohn shape matters; I suspect other large formats could be used similarly

According to Dirk Niepoort's discussion in the "A Year in Port" documentary when Martine Saunier tries a garrafeira straight from the demijohn, the size and shape of the demijohns and the fact they are glass does matter in terms of maturation. I can't imagine they would continue using medium-sized glass demijohns if another method would work just as well and increase production potential and efficiencies.

[PhilW]

- I have no idea whether the demijohn shape matters; I suspect other large formats could be used similarly

According to Dirk Niepoort's discussion in the "A Year in Port" documentary when Martine Saunier tries a garrafeira straight from the demijohn, the size and shape of the demijohns and the fact they are glass does matter in terms of maturation. I can't imagine they would continue using medium-sized glass demijohns if another method would work just as well and increase production potential and efficiencies.

Perhaps they were the most conveniently available large-size glass vessel at the time? I'm sure the size (volume) matters and suspect the material (glass) probably does too, but I'd suggest shape may matter less, that's all (note "less", and that issues such as whether the cork is/isn't in contact with the wine dependent on upright vs horizontal storage may be relevant also of course).

[uncle tom]

I can't imagine they would continue using medium-sized glass demijohns if another method would work just as well and increase production potential and efficiencies.

Except that those old large demijohns are a huge talking point with visitors and add massively to the mystique of the product.

It's a bit like selling sparkling wine in a screw top bottle - perfectly rational and practical - but never done..

[JacobH]

It would be interesting to know what type of wines Niepoort generally lay down for ageing in demijohns. I think someone has said that they take the view that the base wines that will become great tawnies are different to those that become great vintages. If that’s right, I wonder what they choose for garrafeira? I notice that whilst recent releases have mirrored major Niepoort declarations (1977, 1983 and 1987) the two next oldest were made in years where the best wines were colheitas (1964 and 1952), as were a couple of their older ones.

Also, since this thread is supposed to be about Quevedo ( ), it does look to me like they are making it out of their colheita stocks. Presumably if not they would be sending VP samples for comparison rather than colheita ones from the same vintage?

Perhaps they were the most conveniently available large-size glass vessel at the time? I'm sure the size (volume) matters and suspect the material (glass) probably does too, but I'd suggest shape may matter less, that's all (note "less", and that issues such as whether the cork is/isn't in contact with the wine dependent on upright vs horizontal storage may be relevant also of course).

Niepoort say that they were bought in the late 19th Century but didn’t start making garrafeira until 1931. I wonder why they bought them? I think stainless steel wasn’t really around until the early 20th Century so perhaps they thought they could use them in the same way that stainless steel tanks are used today to hold wines and slow their aging?

I can't imagine they would continue using medium-sized glass demijohns if another method would work just as well and increase production potential and efficiencies.

Except that those old large demijohns are a huge talking point with visitors and add massively to the mystique of the product.

Yes. Also, they have them; they work; replacing them all would be a nightmare and take forever if they did it piecemeal. Since they now have new cellars in both Gaia and the Douro, I can’t see there would be any advantage in changing anything.

[Alex Bridgeman]

Also, since this thread is supposed to be about Quevedo ( ), it does look to me like they are making it out of their colheita stocks. Presumably if not they would be sending VP samples for comparison rather than colheita ones from the same vintage?

Don’t forget that in the ‘90s Quevedo were selling their grapes to Taylor(?). Their first vintage was 2003 although they have family reserves from before then. The garrafeira wines are from the family reserves - Oscar and Cladia’s parents must have though trying to make a garrafeira would be a bit of fun.

[JacobH]

Don’t forget that in the ‘90s Quevedo were selling their grapes to Taylor(?). Their first vintage was 2003 although they have family reserves from before then. The garrafeira wines are from the family reserves - Oscar and Cladia’s parents must have though trying to make a garrafeira would be a bit of fun.

You are quite right. I am so used to seeing releases from their reserves that I had forgotten that they only started producing Port on their own quite recently.

[JacobH]

This was a really interesting tasting. Both the garrafeiras were different from their equivalent colheitas, although the difference was rather subtle in the 2000 pairing and very much more pronounced in the 1994s. I liked all the wines, but I thought the 1994 garrafeira was the best: would have loved to have had a couple of bottles of that!

I think both wines could benefit from a lot more age, though. It did make me wonder why the IVDP pitched the minimum at (I think) 3 years in wood and then eight years in glass: it seems slightly arbitrary. It would also be interesting to see where the “sweet spot” for aging these wines is (e.g. maybe 10 years in wood; 15 years in glass and perhaps a few more years in a bottle).

My strongest view, though, is that this is a style of Port which should be produced more often. I think some of the smaller tawny-focused places could really usefully make it as an alternative to their straight colheitas. What would probably be needed, though, is for the IVDP to allow the producers to make it in cork-stoppered 15l steel tanks, since you’d then avoid the storage space problems with glass. Although, that said I’m not sure just how difficult getting a garrafeira cellar going would be: you’d need racks and a little more space, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the costs of decent barrels exceeded that an equivalent number of demijohns.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I think the difficulty in making garrafeira, the huge challenge in getting the demijohns and then the practical challenge of storage not to mention the tiny quantities which can be produced all lead to the eye-watering prices garrafeira Ports now command (rightly in my opinion). Niepoort 1987 Garrafeira is a fabulous wine which shows what the Quevedo 1994 might achieve in another 7 years and is £600 a bottle from the Whisky Exchange.

[JacobH]

I have to confess to being even more confused about the demijohn situation after the tasting than before. I understand that no-one makes those rather elegant hand-blown green glass demijohns any more and so, if you want to acquire some you must buy them second-hand at a high price. And it may be difficult to find them since they are antiques. And if you do, you may struggle to find an appropriate sized cork.

However, you can also buy modern machine-made demijohns whose shape is very similar for not a huge price (c. £25 for a 15l). The come in plastic baskets which make them look a slightly odd shape but the photos of them without the basket reveals them almost to be the same as those hand-blown demijohns in which these Quevedo garrafeiras were aged. They take a standardised cork. If you wanted to produce, say, 1,000 bottles of a particular year (which seems to me reasonable amount for this sort of thing) you’d need 50+ of these which would cost c.£1,250 which doesn’t seem to me to be too unfavourable in cost compared to the price of barrels. And of course, the demijohns will effectively last forever.

Am I missing something or are the real issues a) the space required; and b) that making one from scratch would be a very experimental process?

[Glenn E.]

In all seriousness, what is the practical (winemaking) difference between a 15 liter demijohn and a Nebuchadnezzar?

I also realize that very large wine bottles are custom made, but at least they are still being made so it seems one could commission a couple hundred of them if one wanted to. They'd even all be the same size and would store easily because of that regular shape.

Is the difference (and also for Jacob's link) the fact that real demijohns have larger corks and thus regulate oxygen exposure differently?

[JacobH]

I bet no-one actually knows the answer since no-one has been doing a comparative testing of ageing Port in a Nebuchadnezzar v. a demijohn like the one I linked to v. a more squat demijohn like the ones Niepoort use v. anything else one might wish to try!

I guess the advantage of making a garrafeira in wine-bottle shaped demijohns would be that you could stack them on their sides in a bin, although this is slightly different from Niepoort’s method which has them upright so the cork isn’t exposed to moisture. Whether this, in addition to the cork being different, makes a significant difference to the end product is really anyone’s guess, I expect.

I also thought that empty Nebuchadnezzar bottles were also quite expensive since they have to be hand-made, especially compared to a £25 machine made bottle, but may be complete wrong about this.

PS. Would be interesting to know what the IVDP made of these Ports. How on earth do you determine whether a 21-year-old garrafeira has met the standards of a garrafeira if literally no-one has made one before?

[Glenn E.]

I also thought that empty Nebuchadnezzar bottles were also quite expensive since they have to be hand-made, especially compared to a £25 machine made bottle, but may be complete wrong about this.

Actually that link implies that it is hand made:

Demijohn can contain natural features: air-bubbles, cracks / chips resulting from it is a hand-made product. Such items are non-refundable.
Quality may not fulfill your expectations. We recommend personally visit the our shop and check the product before buying.

£25 still sounds pretty expensive for an empty bottle, but if you're going to fill it with 15L of Port that's nominally worth at least that per 750ml it doesn't sound quite as bad. Especially if once you're done you can sell that 750ml of juice for $600 like Niepoort is doing!