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| Community Tasting Notes (average 92 pts. and median of 92 pts. in 11 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by J+B_Wines on 6/20/2023 & rated 92 points: Well balanced (410 views) | | | Tasted by rbfleming on 11/28/2021 & rated 90 points: Raisins, prunes. Coffee? (1100 views) | | | Tasted by Deux Chevaux on 1/9/2021: We nursed this over two weeks, serving it mostly with spicy soups, very good match. The note below describes it well, and indeed it’s rather sweet — but it has sufficient acidity and was not at all cloying. (1481 views) | | | Tasted by AJGalvin on 1/5/2020 & rated 94 points: Dark amber color (honeyed brown) with a touch of orange. Clear. Heavy weight. Very sweet. Scents of bourbon or maybe scotch, vanilla, and toast. Tastes of rich maple syrup. I'm not sure what else, but it tastes like a waffle breakfast at your favorite diner. (1576 views) | | | Tasted by WetRock on 3/29/2019: Agree with JSJones note below. Drank this over a month or two storing it in the refrigerator. It never changed even slightly over that time. Fairly sweet as Madeira's go. Some baking spice over a touch of caramel and a smack of citrus. All of those notes come separately though. Rather than part of one experience. This makes for a nice basic dessert/late night sort of quaff but the value is poor. Maybe some aging will help this but there was nothing inherent about it that made it seem like it could gain much in the future. The price should be less than half of what this retails for. Meh. (2074 views) | | | Tasted by rjonwine@gmail.com on 10/16/2018 & rated 91 points: Dark orange color with ruby lights; aromatic, dried orange, orange marmalade, dried fig nose; orange honey, orange cream, marmalade palate with good acidity; long finish 91+ points (1151 views) | | | Tasted by jsjones on 3/13/2018: Drank over many months. It is a fine Madeira, but in my opinion overpriced for a generic "sweet" Madeira. I've found most any of the single grape variety better, even the 5 year. (1855 views) | | | Tasted by Paul Anderson on 1/1/2017 & rated 94 points: Warm Toffee with olive green rim in colour at Jan 1st 17 in Virgin Lounge San Fransisco . v/good On the nose theres the aged Raisen , sultana fruitcake with good clean spirit used. On the palate fruit sweetness similar to above with clean spirit length. like (1603 views) | | | Tasted by Ombibulous on 11/30/2016: This is ageable like other vintage Madeira, ¿no? (1109 views) | | | Tasted by RajivAyyangar on 3/15/2016 & rated 92 points: Broadbent Vinho Verde, Port, Madeira: Less aromatic than the 5yr or 10yr. Nutty almond, slight play dough / ethyl acetate. Nutty, figgy, dates, with slight maple bourbon character. Really, really good on the palate. Long and intense finish, with high acidity. (2048 views) |
| By Roy Hersh
For The Love of Port, Issue #77 (7/22/2013)
(Broadbent Sweet Colheita Madeira) Subscribe to see review text. | By Richard Jennings
RJonWine.com (10/16/2018)
(Broadbent Madeira Colheita) Dark orange color with ruby lights; aromatic, dried orange, orange marmalade, dried fig nose; orange honey, orange cream, marmalade palate with good acidity; long finish 91+ points 91 points |
NOTE: Scores and reviews are the property of For The Love of Port and RJonWine.com. (manage subscription channels) |
| Broadbent Producer websiteColheitaThis colheita was aged in small oak barrels for three years in a warm corrugated steel-roofed warehouse to caramelize the sugars and to further concentrate its flavors through evaporation.Portugal ViniPortugal (Associação Interprofissional para a Promoção dos Vinhos Portugueses/Portuguese Wine Trade Association)MadeiraThe Madeira Wine Guide and For The Love of Port are two essential sites on the wines of Madeira.MadeiraFrom Mannie Burk@ Rare Wine Co :
When served in 1950, the wine was 158 years old, but in fine condition, still boasting Madeira’s trademark rich, sweet, velvety taste and roomfilling aromas of butterscotch, cocoa and coffee. Sir Winston insisted on serving the guests himself, asking each in turn, “Do you realize that when this wine was vintaged Marie Antoinette was alive?”
Madeira’s longevity earns it a special place in the realm of old wine. What other wine requires over a half century to mature? And what other wine, when a century old, still benefits from several hours of breathing and can stand up to weeks in a decanter, without losing its complexity or its richness? And how many wines can live for two centuries and still offer not only the pleasure of their antiquity, but also the enjoyment of drinking?
The robustness and longevity of Madeira, even once opened, allows for endless experimentation with food pairings and drinking occasions.
Madeira’s Mountain Vineyards:
Madeira is produced on a breathtakingly beautiful volcanic island of the same name which surges from the sea at a point 360 miles west of Morocco and 700 miles south of Portugal, which governs it. The history of Madeira’s wine is nearly as old as that of the island. The island was first settled by Europeans—led by the Portuguese explorer Zarco—in 1419. By 1455 a visitor from Venice wrote that Madeira’s vineyards were the world's most beautiful. Within a century, the wine from these vineyards was well established in markets throughout Europe and by the 1600’s it had become the most popular wine in Britain’s North American colonies.
America’s First Wine:
The popularity of Madeira in the American colonies got a huge boost in 1665 when the British authorities banned the importation of products made or grown in Europe, unless shipped on British vessels from British ports. Products from Madeira were specifically exempted. British merchants in Madeira took full advantage of this by establishing close ties with merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston and Savannah. A steady trade developed in which wine from Madeira was traded for such American products as indigo, corn and cotton. This trade continued unabated until the early 1800’s, except when politics and war interfered in the 1770’s.
For two centuries, Madeira was the wine of choice for most affluent Americans. Francis Scott Keyes is said to have penned the Star Spangled Banner, sipping from a glass of Madeira. George Washington's inauguration was toasted with Madeira, as was the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Wealthy families from Boston to Savannah established extensive collections of Madeiras. Madeira became high fashion, and“Madeira parties” (a forerunner of today’s wine tasting) became major social events.
How Madeira is Made:
Madeira is produced from grapes grown on terraces cut into the island's steep mountainsides. Like Port, Madeira is a “fortified” wine to which brandy has been added. But unlike other fortified wines, Madeira is also heated for several months, either in special vats or in the attic lofts of the Madeira lodges.
This heating (called “estufagem”) had its origins in the days when merchant ships called at Madeira on their way to the East and West Indies. Beginning in the late 1600's, wines from Madeira's vineyards were frequent cargo on ships sailing to the Americas, as well as to mainland Portugal, England and India. According to legend, the value of a trip to the tropics was learned when an orphan cask, forgotten in a ship's hold, returned to Madeira from a trip across the Equator. The wine was found to be rich and velvety, far better than when it left, and a tropical cruise became part of the Madeira winemaking tradition.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, producers continued to send casks of their wines on long voyages, for no other reason than to develop greater character. The ocean traveling wines were called vina da roda (“wines of the round voyage”) and those that crossed the Equator twice were considered the best. Some Madeiras were named for the vessels with which they sailed (Constitution, Balthazar, Red jacket, Hurricane, Comet) or the places they had been (East Indies, West Indies, Japan, Argentina). Although this practice ended in the first decade of the 20th century, heating is still a critical step in the making of all Madeiras.
A Century of Change:
While the majority of Madeiras are blends of vintages and grape varieties, it is the vintage wines, and the now-vanishing soleras that are Madeira’s claim to greatness. Vintage and solera Madeiras are not simply a selection of the best wines from the best years, they are made from particular “noble” grape varieties after which the wines are named. These names—Malmsey, Bual, Verdelho, Sercial—not only describe a grape variety; they also describe a style, with Malmsey being the sweetest and richest (and therefore the most like Vintage Port) and Sercial being the lightest and the driest.
There are other grape varieties whose names you may stumble across on old bottles of Madeira. Terrantez and Bastardo, in particular, are grapes that were widely grown up to the late 1800's and whose old wines can still be found on occasion. The virtual extinction of Terrantez and Bastardo grapevines in the late 1800's coincided with the decline of the Madeira wine trade and resulted from the same causes: two diseases of the vine, Oidium and Phylloxera, both of which also struck the vineyards of Europe, but in Madeira caused much greater, and more lasting, destruction.
The Oidium crisis began in 1852 and lasted about a decade; during this time some 90 percent of the island's vines were destroyed by powdery mildew, and the number of firms producing wine decreased by over 75 percent. There was a brief period of replanting and rebuilding in the 1860's, but then Phylloxera struck in 1872, reducing the island's vine acreage to about 1,000 by the early 1880’s.
The Phylloxera crisis, too, passed, and by the turn of the century production had been restored throughout the island, albeit at somewhat lower levels. But the costs had been heavy. Madeira had largely lost its traditional markets—America, England and the British East Indian colonies. Relatively less of the classic grape varieties were now grown, as they gave way to more prolific, but less distinguished, varieties. And, of course, stocks of older wines had been largely depleted, after a half century during which little young wine was being produced.
Today, the world's supply of fine Madeira is negligible. However, those few examples that have survived from the 19th and early 20th centuries are among the world's most majestic wines, which no wine lover should fail to experience.
Over the past twenty years, our passion for these noble wines has grown with each passing month. We believe that they are among the greatest, most individual wines this planet has ever produced. They possess a richness and grandeur shared by only a few wines.
And their ability to age makes them absolutely unique. Most wines are dead and gone at age 100; and at best they are barely drinkable. But after a century, a Madeira can be just reaching its prime, possessing the depth of great age, but also the vigor of youth.
The gradual depletion of the world’s stocks of these irreplaceable wines has only encouraged us to try harder to find the wines that remain.
A Note on Prices and Quality:
As they have grown in rarity, and the sources of supply diminish, the price of Madeira on the world market has skyrocketed. Though many of the older wines arguably are worth whatever you may be asked to pay, the rising tide—combined with Madeira’s mystique—has also raised the prices of mediocrities to the levels of the greats. |
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