May 26, 2023 - Decanted 72hrs. Bottle 294/739. Bottled July 2018
Pale, slightly cloudy amber. Nose of barley sugar, lemon oil and something slightly saline, like a rockpool at low tide. On the palate, light and ethereal but with hidden reserves of power. Only really verdelho sweet with a good kick of grapefruit acidity. Like all of Ricardo's wines, a light touch and very fresh and lifted despite sone of the wines in the blend blend being considerably older than 40yrs. Very long sweet and sour finish. Totally delicious and a nice change from the richer D'Oliveiras style that I am used to. Glad I tried it but at this price (Euro 305), probably not a rebuy.
December 31, 2022 - Light amber in color. This comes across more medium dry than medium sweet... almost Verdelho like. This is a fruity style, with raisins and dried citrus, along with some vanilla spice. Not a lot of toffee/caramel notes here. Pure, clean, long and full of lip-pursing acidity. This would be a wine, that for my tastes, would be better served with a meal rather than dessert. The acidity gets ramped up even more on following days. Pretty electric stuff.
November 10, 2022 - Just when I thought Madeira couldn’t get any better this came along. A medium sweet style with flavours of lime marmalade, salted caramel topped with cream yet there are notes of iodine. Extraordinarily complex and multi-dimensional, the finish is simply infinitesimal. Perfection and sublime and well worthy of a 100 point score.
November 29, 2021 - Not as sweet as I like, but tasty. Good balance and a great finish
June 27, 2020 - One of my favorites. I find the 40-50 year old Madeira blends are insider wines. I first tasted this on Madeira at Barbeito ... and it stole the show.
Exciting nose with brilliant nutty notes plus butterscotch. Palate shows less sweet than more Bual, with strong acidity. Supposedly based on 1892 Bual, but an unusual Bual -- more Terrantez or Verdelho in terms of sweetness with such lovely acidity it keeps me coming back for more. Super long finish. Really just fabulous!
December 19, 2019 - Brass colour. Nose is caramel candy and a herbaceous note, perhaps animal fur. Rich, concentrated with encisive acidity. Very long. I’ll buy a bottle of that!