Boal Borges 1875

The 1875 vintage on Madeira was made during the early years of the phylloxera outbreak that arrived on the island around 1872 and peaked in 1877. The grapes came from ungrafted Vitis vinifera vines that had survived the earlier oidium epidemic (1851/52) but had not yet been killed by phylloxera.

Wines from this era are made from the original pre-phylloxera rootstock, which many believe produced wines of even greater concentration and complexity than modern plantings. The year 1875 saw favourable growing conditions on Madeira, with warm temperatures and moderate rainfall producing grapes of exceptional ripeness and concentration.

After 151 years of canteiro ageing, Boal Borges 1875 has achieved a level of complexity that is almost impossible to describe — each sip reveals new layers of flavour that have been building for over a century and a half.

Boal Borges 1875 belongs to a vanishingly rare category of wines: pre-phylloxera-era Madeira. Madeira had two catastrophic diseases in the 19th century. First was oidium (powdery mildew) in 1851/52, which destroyed 98% of vines and drove out 55 of 70 British wine merchants by 1855. Then came phylloxera, arriving around 1872 and peaking in 1877 when production collapsed to just 100 casks from 3,000 in good years.

The 1875 vintage sits between these disasters — from ungrafted vines that survived oidium but had not yet been killed by phylloxera. Richard Mayson tasted this wine alongside other 19th-century Borges vintages: Borges Verdelho 1875 (scored 15/20, "rather odd for a Verdelho") and Borges Terrantez 1877 (scored 19/20, "a wow of a wine"). The Terrantez 1877 is the masterpiece; the Boal 1875 is the historic specimen. Henrique Menezes Borges founded H.M.

Borges in 1877 during the phylloxera outbreak, acquiring this wine from older reserves. Today, vanishingly few casks of pre-phylloxera Madeira remain, making each bottle of Boal Borges 1875 a genuine survivor — and one that is still vibrantly alive.

For a wine this age, provenance is the entire ball game. Reliable provenance generally comes from three places: the Borges lodge in Funchal directly, major auction houses (Christie's, Sotheby's), or specialist Madeira merchants with long relationships to the Borges family.

Bottles from secondary auction sites with no clear provenance chain should be treated with scepticism. Authentication is offered by H.M.

Borges directly for bottles of disputed origin. The wine is essentially indestructible and supply only diminishes, but bottle variation is real for wines of this age.