Henriques & Henriques Single Harvest 1998
Category | Madeira |
Varietal | |
Brand | Henriques & Henriques |
Origin | Portugal, Madeira |
The history of Henriques & Henriques goes back to 1425, when, according to legend, Infante Dom Henriques planted the first vines on the island of Madeira. However, the firm Henriques & Henriques was founded in 1850 as a partidista — someone who buys stocks or makes their own wine and sells it to the larger shippers — from the family's vineyard holdings on the island. In 1925, H&H began to bottle and export Madeira made entirely from their own vineyards, something unique among producers and shippers. To this day, Henriques & Henriques own the largest single vineyard on the island — the 10-hectare Quinta Grande — and boast an impressive selection of vintage and solera bottlings dating from before 1925 in the family's cellars. Perhaps most important, H&H have been in the vanguard of vineyard plantings and preservation of the noble grapes of Madeira: Sercial, Verdelho, Boal and Malvasia. Their age-statement varietal wines are viewed as the benchmark of quality.
The H&H Tinta Negra Single Harvest 1998 is a colheita bottling produced from 100% Tinta Negra Mole. Made meio doce — in the “Medium-Rich” style of Boal — the wine offers mingled notes of cherry, fig, sultana, bergamot oil and cured tobacco leaves. Full-bodied and complex, this is a superb synthesis of sweetness, volcanic soils and shimmering acidity, which proceed in an elegant dance to a lengthy finish. Enjoy with chocolate or coffee-based desserts or as a digestif with a full-bodied cigar.