Blandy’s Vintage Bual 1920
A member of the Heritage Wine Collection, the 1920 Bual is one of the Blandy Family's most iconic wines.
Aged for over 100 years in both American Oak Casks and, as of March 2017, in glass demijohns, each separate bottling naturally evolved by heat, humidity, cask size, and location withing the Wine Lodge in Funchal.
Only 1,119 individually numbered bottles will be released of this centennial wine.
Reviews
2020 review:
The centenary bottling of Blandy's 1920 Bual is showing superbly, unwinding in the glass with aromas of dried figs, walnuts, caramelized citrus rind, bitter honey, warm spices and nori. Full-bodied, deep and immensely concentrated, this is a searingly intense, multifaceted and pungently sapid wine of immense vibrancy and persistence; indeed, given its protracted maturation in wood, this Bual represents almost a reduction of Madeira, and each small taste lingers on the palate for minutes. The 1920 Bual remained in oak barrels until March 2017, when it was racked to demijohn, and any of the 900 bottles that constitute this release will be worthy of ardent pursuit.
2024 update:
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. - L.G.
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