Liquid Amber
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

You’ve surely heard of the wine called Madeira. But when, if ever, did you last taste it? No wine that has such an iconic name is so rarely seen or served, nowadays, as this one. Yet, if there’s ever an ideal time to savor this rich and lively fortified wine, it’s during the holiday season. In particular, a glass of Madeira can add a fresh dimension to the standard slice of fruit cake. Or just a bowl of almonds.
My own introduction to Madeira, one morning 15 years ago, was haphazard. Pushing my daughter in her stroller to her pre-school on the Upper West Side, I passed an old townhouse being renovated. Workmen were depositing the dusty contents of the cellar on the sidewalk, including two dark glass bottles with the slightly bulging neck that is typical of Madeira. After dropping off my daughter, I returned to check out the bottles. They were two-thirds full. They had to be old, because the importer’s address on the rear label carried a zone rather than a Zip code, which is to say, it was before 1963. I worked the cork out of one bottle. Up came a vivid aroma of chocolate, orange essence, and something like graham crackers. Won over then and there, I took the two bottles home.
I’d expected the Madeira to be similar in taste to those other kingpins of fortified wines, port and sherry. But it tasted like neither, due in part to a streak of acidity that not only balanced the wine’s sweetness but gave it an exhilerating raciness. Intensity, not heaviness, was its hallmark. In sum, those two old bottles rescued from the sidewalk opened up a new vinous frontier for yours truly.
Madeira is vinified from a variety of mostly offbeat grapes, including sercial, verdelho, bual, and malmsey (malvasia). Each gives its name, in ascending order of sweetness, to a style of Madeira. Oddly, the most commonly used grape, the tinta negra mole, is not seen on labels. No other wine is made like Madeira. In the 17th century, barrels (locally called pipes) of the wine, which had been sent by ship from this Portuguese island to India, were found to taste better at the end of the long voyage. The rocking action of the oceans, along with the natural heating and cooling along the way, seemed to mellow the wine. Substituting for the sea, in our times, is a system of heating and cooling in estufas, tanks or rooms where the wine is tamed without ever leaving the ruggedly volcanic shores of Madeira, which rises from the Atlantic ocean several hundred miles off the North African coast.
In Colonial America, Madeira was as fashionable as today’s Grey Goose Vodka. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson adored the stuff. Well-to-do families would “pay up to $40 a bottle for the rarest, a fantastic price at the time,” according to “Food and Drink in America,” by Richard J. Hooker. In Savannah and Charleston, “Madeira worship” occurred at 5 o’clock tasting parties, at which half a dozen bottlings were compared over “olives, parched peanuts and almonds.”
In our times, vintage port has grown steadily in popularity in America while Madeira has been all but forgotten. That’s probably due less to any change in taste than to the lack of any promotion of the wines by the Madeira establishment. While other wine regions crowd New York with tastings for the trade and press each spring and fall, Madeira producers are absent. An exception is the current effort by the Englishman Bartholomew Broadbent, a San Francisco-based importer, to boost the fortunes of Madeira. His wines have been selected on-site by his father, Michael Broadbent, called the world’s most authoritative Madeira taster. They include a new designation, Colheita (wines from a single vintage), borrowed from the world of port. While traditional vintage Madeira must spend 19 years in cask and another year in bottle, Colheita requires a “mere” seven years in cask prior to release. Broadbent’s current offering (see “Recommended Madieras”) is Coheita ’95. “It’s a category that allows us to compete with vintage Madeira,” said Bartholomew Broadbent. “And the wine has real elegance.”
No wine lasts so well and so long as Madeira. Even a bottle that has been opened and recorked will retain its character for years. Last Wednesday, I had the chance to taste, or I should say to experience, a pair of ancient Madeiras kindly offered by Stuart Leaf, a Madeira collector and lover. One was a Sercial Solara 1860 shipped by Cossart, Gordon & Co. Think of a solara as if it were a perpetually simmering stock pot. The oldest “stock” in the solara, in this case, was from 1860. It is replenished as the wine evaporates or is drawn off for bottling. Brilliant amber-gold in color, this old Madeira had what Mr. Leaf described as “bracing acidity” and the “Madeira twang that you look for.” That twang, to me, was like the vibration of a tight wire of intense flavor.
The other oldie was a Boal 1900 from Manuel de Sousa Herdeiros. An example of the second sweetest style of Madeira, it was coffee-brown in the glass, lightening to amber at the rim. “I’m getting all sorts of citrus, slightly burnt nut, caramelized walnut,” said Mr. Leaf. There was even a hint of fresh varnish in the wine. That may sound unattractive, but like the scent of freshly cut pine, it wasn’t. This was a wine full of life and nuance. Over a century old, it seemed to be in its prime.
“A vintage Madeira,” said Mr. Leaf, “gets its sea legs when it’s 70 years old.” If only we mortals could say the same.
Recommended Madeiras
BROADBENT COLHEITA 1995 ($39.75) Lighter and brighter in color and flavor than longer-aged wines. A predinner sipper as well as an excellent introduction to Madeira. According to the importer, this is the first Colheita to be introduced in America.
BLANDY’S MALMSEY 5 YEARS OLD ($24.99) Rich and sweet but not syrupy, thanks to acidity that is a bedrock of madeira. Coffee and toffee flavors. Tastes like a close relative to tawny port.
NEW YORK MALMSEY, SPECIAL RESERVE, BARBEITO. BOTTLED FOR THE RARE WINE CO. HISTORIC SERIES ($41.99) The same pale color as the Blandy’s, but more fire and intensity to it. Spicy, with a long aftertaste. Will partner well with aged cheddar or Stilton cheese.
BLANDY’S RAINWATER, MEDIUM DRY ($14.99) Call this “madeira light.” The legend is that in the mid-18th century some pipes of madeira were left on the beach until they could be loaded aboard ships. The bung, or plug, atop each barrel was inadvertantly not inserted. Rainwater entered, giving the wine a gentler character that appealed to consumers. Gentle does not mean diluted. This bottling, pale verging on clear, is nutty and smoky. Only midly sweet, it retains madiera’s signature lift of acidity.
NOTE: Ancient bottles of Madeira can be found at several local wine shops. Crossroads Wine & Liquor (55 W 14th St., 212-924-3060) offers a D’Oliveira Verdelho Reserva 1900 for $517 and Astor Wines & Spirits (12 Astor Place, 212-674-7500) has a Barbieto Malvasia 1900 for $399.99. Sherry-Lehmann (679 Madison Ave., 212-838-7500) has a Cossart & Gordon 1975 Vintage madeira at $125, a low price for a wine from an excellent source that requires 20 years of aging prior to release.