Madeira

Ten Great Ports and Madeiras For the Holidays

Filed under: Spirits

When you say "stickies" to a wine geek it's understood that you mean sweet dessert wine. But when you say Madeira or Port to a wine geek, it's understood that you are talking about the unique wines of Portugal that are not nearly as sticky as they are desirable; fortified with brandy and produced in elaborate ways, the wines are too complex to be called sweet dessert wines; in fact, some of them, especially Madeira, go a long way to serve as foils to a meal.

When the cold outside has us seeking warmth, there's nothing warmer than the feel of a fortified wine. The following ten-five Madeiras and five Ports-will not only warm you, they will make you feel pampered and fed.

Madiera is the wine that never dies. That's because of its singular process that literally cooks the wine to near-Pasteurization. The result is that each type of the five major Madeira wine styles is underlined as caramelized. Because the wines never die, try some of the older vintages listed by the Rare Wine Company Madeira importers. Don't worry. Once you open it, you do not have to finish the bottle for years to come.

Barbeito Sercial 1988 ($90.00)

The driest Madeira style, Sercial is pale in color. It is aged for at least eight years before release, which deepens its color somewhat. Contrary to the "sticky" moniker, when served slightly chilled, Sercial makes for a great aperitif and can also be paired with seafood as well as with dried fruits and nuts.

D'Oliveira Verdelho 1973 ($110.00)

Verdelho is golden-hued, medium-bodied, with sweetness up front and a dry finish. Tradition has it that you serve Verdelho with fruitcake, but it does equally well with fruit or cake individually, not to mention nuts, which is standard Madeira pairing material.

Tags: Barbeito Malvasia, DOliveira Bual, Dows Port, Fonseca Port, Holiday Gifts Madeira, Holiday Gifts Port, Madeira, Niepoort Vintage Port, Smith Woodhouse

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Rare Wine Co. Launches Historic Series Madeira Gift Set

by David Kiley (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

In the 18^th century, Britain taxed Madeira, but the new American states did not. Consequently, the wine from the small island by that name, located about 500 miles into the Atlantic Ocean from Portugal, enjoyed a booming American market until the middle nineteenth century when two devastating diseases wiped out about 90 percent of the island's vineyards.

Tenacious, beautiful, and tasty beyond imagination, Madeira wines have endured, and they seem to be making a comeback in the United States, thanks in part to the Rare Wine Company of Sonoma, California, which has announced its latest Historic Series Madeira gift package.

Named for U.S. seaports where Madeira flourished in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the wines are drawn on the extraordinary stocks of old Madeira aged at Vinhos Barbeito, one of the oldest premium Madeira houses.

The Rare Wine Company offers only 750 of these commemorative wine sets, each including four specially commissioned half bottles (375ml) plus a booklet that traces the fabulous history of the little island and its American market.

Priced at $95, the pack includes Charleston's Sercial, Savannah's Verdelho, Boston's Bual and, New York's Malmsey, each of which has received critical raves.

The hallmark of every Madeira wine is its bracing acidity that offsets the general sweetness of the wine, which is purposely exposed to high heat for extended periods of time to give it a caramel-marzipan quality.

Charleston's Sercial is the driest wine in the series, and the perfect aperitif. Savannah's Verdelho, with its hint of orange rind and ginger shortbread, plus an almond-like finish, pairs beautifully with the soup course. Boston Bual reminds of cinnamon-clove spice, citrus, and smoke; it pairs with white meat dishes but it is also the penultimate after dinner sipper. New York's Malmsey, the sweetest in the series, is a dessert wine with flavors of coffee/toffee that you can pair with foie gras or pour over ice cream

The package is available at www.rarewineco.com/index.htm

Gallery: Rare Wine Co. Madeira Gift Set

Tags: apertif, Madeira, Madeira gift set, Rare Wine Co., wine, wine gifts

Shipwrecked Madiera To Be Sold At Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine, Auctions

From the depths of the ocean to your wine cellar. Spectrum Wine Auctions, Southern California's leading auction house of fine and rare wine, will hold its first sale of the fall 2010 auction season on September 24 including a bottle of shipwrecked Madeira wine dating to the 1800s. The bottle, which is estimated at $1200 was discovered off of the Savannah, Georgia coast by professional diver Bill Kinsey in the late 1970s. The lot comes from a collector who bought the only two bottles from the shipwreck in 1980 at The Heublein Premiere National Auction of Rare Wines XII. He tasted the first one on television and noted that it was fantastic and in perfect condition. The thick mud on the ocean floor protected the bottles from worms and water.

The sale will take place at 6 p.m. PDT at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills and Saturday, September 25 at 9:00 a.m. HKT at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. Other highlights from the sale include some of the greatest vintages from producers in Bordeaux, Burgundy and California including 37 lots of Harlan Cabernet Sauvignon, 47 lots of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon and several verticals of Chateau Montelena in magnum, three-liter and five-liter bottles. The total pre-sale estimate for the 761 lots on offer is $3.2 million.

Tags: madeira, shipwrecked wine, spectrum wine auction, wine auction

The Private Wine Cellars of London

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

The Independent has a fun feature on Britain's hidden wine cellars. Not only does the government keep a private stash of 40,000 bottles but other private cellars offer rare treats. The monarchy and the government, of course have large cellars for state dinners and other grand affairs. London's clubs including the Garrick and the Carlton also have renowned cellars. Other places to find rare wines including banks and city houses, the Oxbridge colleges,some Army regiments, some professional institutions, and the city livery companies. With the leisurely, boozy lunch on the wane, stockbrokers are not doing as much buying as they used to. The Bank of England's cellar contains about 2,800 bottles and the really big cellars are kept by the 12 original livery companies of the City of London and the Oxbridge colleges. In the article, Warren Benbow, assistant clerk at the Goldsmiths, says they have 18 bottles of Madeira dating from 1835 (so rare as to be considered priceless) and a collection of ports, some of which date back to 1948. Some of the Oxbridge colleges sell surplus wine to raise funds which might be your only chance to get your hands on some of the rare vintages.

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Tags: london, madeira, port, private cellars, wine, wine cellars, WineCellars

Quinta Splendida Hotel

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Spas

The Quinta Splendida is part of the newly formed Quintas da Madeira collection, a group of 16 hotels on the island of Madeira off the coast of Portugal. The Quinta Splendida will be opening a new spa in June 2006. The new spa includes a vitality pool and an indoor pool next to an in-door waterfall feature surrounded by orchids. There will be ten treatment rooms including a couple’s massage room and a fitness room, a sauna and an ice fountain in combination with a separate cold water bath and a footbath. Other treatments include a Turkish steam bath and mud bath. The hotel is surrounded by botanical gardens which are home to hundreds of species of tropical flowers and plants. The Quinta Splendida High Package which includes seven nights in a studio sea room, a Madeira wine tasting and garden guided tour goes for 312 euros including daily breakfast.

[via E-Travel Blackboard]

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Tags: botanical gardens, getaway, madeira, quinta splendida, QuintaSplendida, spa, vacation