Solera method Madeiras

[Roy Hersh]

I had a lot of these Solera method Madeiras when I was first starting out and lived in Virginia at the time. They seemed more plentiful than now where Vintage Madeira popularity has increased exponentially, as has the price.

Do others share my enjoyment of the Solera Madeiras?

If so, who do you feel are some of the top producers of this style?
Do you remember any specific bottles that floated your boat?

[Rico Thompson]

Absolutely love'm....I've got some 1865 Blandy Bual and 1845 Cossart-Gordan Bual.....both are really quite magical and in my view worth the fare.

[Marco D.]

Count me in as another fan of solera Madeiras... vastly under-appreciated. They are indeed rare to find these days, as it is no longer legal to produce this category of Madeira any more. I find this to be a shame and I'm not sure what the reasoning was... perhaps they feel the world is more "vintage-centric", perhaps there were fraudulent practices or perhaps they just wanted to differentiate themselves from sherry?

I found the general quality of the soleras I tried to be quite high. The rules were pretty strict... I believe you can only replace 10% of the wine a maximum of 10 times. I think this left you with about 50% of the original base wine.

[Rico Thompson]

Very interesting Marco...I kept looking for some definitive guideline....the 10%x10 regulation, eh?! Thanks...guess we better buy up the old ones.....

[Andy Velebil]

I had a lot of these Solera method Madeiras when I was first starting out and lived in Virginia at the time. They seemed more plentiful than now where Vintage Madeira popularity has increased exponentially, as has the price.

Do others share my enjoyment of the Solera Madeiras?

Forgive my lack of Madeira knowledge, but what exactly is a solera Madeira and why is it not produce anymore?

[JohnG]

As I understand it, whilst the wine matures in barrel, having been blended, it will be refreshed. That is to say that some younger wine from a different batch and year can be introduced into the older wine. In turn, some wine may be drawn off the older barrel to refresh a yet older wine.

The result should be a more approachable wine. The solera wine, for example, the Cossart Gordon 1845 Bual I just looked at should, therefore, have around 50% of an 1845 vintage wine as the base, topped up by younger wines.

Some people say these wines are not the real thing, an adulterated vintage perhaps. For my part, I find them yet another facet of a fascinating wine. Also, given that vintage madeira is not cheap, the solera wines are priced so that a nineteenth century solera wine is much less expensive that a true vintage madeira of the 'base' year.

Why no solera madeira now? It appears that when Portugal negotiated its entry into the European Union, the negotiator forgot to include solera wines when dealing with the permitted types of madeira which could be produced, so that old soleras became illegal by default.

Don't ask why it was the EU's business how they make Madeira!

You will only be able to buy these from a madeira specialist, so the chance comes, grab it. The wine will remain drinkable for months after decanting if well stoppered.

John

[Andy Velebil]

John,

Thank you very much for the info.

I was just about to ask what bussiness the EU had to do with it, but politics being what they are, I woun't.

[Marco D.]

Just had a Blandy's 1880 Verdelho Solera this week. Wonderful! A bit drier in style with nervy acids, but my what complexity... caramel, orange peel, chocolate, spices, etc. All this for under $200.

[JohnG]

Coincidentally, I also broached the same 1880 solera last spring; my tasting note emphasised the freshness of the wine which also kept well over several weeks. It was, I think, a fairly elderly bottling which just underlines what pleasant surprises there are to be had from these soleras. By no means are they second class wines.

John

[Richard Henderson]

Noel Cossart's book, Madeira The Island VIneyard, Christie's Wine Publications:1984 is a must for madeira lovers. He describes and defines soleras and dated soleras in a dedicated chapter.
The length of the chapter is too great to type here. It is correct to say that the matriz or mother wine is the oldest, ususally the blending wines are at least 10 years old. They are not added every year.
Cossart states that sometimes the blending corrects "faults".
They try to use only high quality wines of the same types to blend . They may add wine every 10-20 years or so.
As he describes it, it is a complex topic.

And as JohnG says above , they are not second class wines compared to vintage madeiras which are from the single year vintage.
An 1870 solera might have wine from 1890, 1910, 1930.

[Eric Ifune]

I really enjoy the solera Madeiras as well but I've noticed that lately, the auction prices seem quite high as well. I would have hoped they would be significantly less expensive than the true vintages but this doesn't seem to be the case. Anyone else notice this?

[JohnG]

Eric,

Over here, the price of a solera, against a vintage Madeira, from the UK's leading merchant is roughly one half for the same 'vintage'. That seems, to me, fairly to reflect that the wine is mixed. Is there less difference in the USA?

I feel that the solera prices are perhaps more rooted in reality. Vintage prices undoubtedly reflect scarcity and trophy value. Age, of itself, is obviously no indicator of quality.

In my, limited, experience one of the joys of Madeira is the discovery, on broaching a bottle, of finding what changes time has worked on a 'typical' grape variety. The soleras offer an easier journey to sample the evolution of the wine.

John Hardman

[Paul Day]

If Soleras had one advantage over Vintage wines it was freshness. But because many have been in bottle for a long time, perhaps blended for the last time in the '50's or '60's that advantage has diminished somewhat. Better to drink a fine 70 year old vintage wine at its peak than a tired Solera with a much older date in my view.

In addition, not everyone was as careful in refreshing, say, 7-8 times every 10 years before putting the wines into demi-johns. Cossart writes of "disreputable soleras", but one very distinguished producer of Madeira admitted to me that the average age and quality of their old Solera wines with C19 dates was less than the firm's current 15yo wines when bottled. So it isn't surprising that these wines are somewhat disappointing when drunk today.

Finally, I think although there are a number of successful Solera wines there are only a very few great ones (such as the various 1808 Malmseys from the MWC).

Technically, I understand it is possible to create Solera wines today under stricter legislation, but only Borges has tried that as far as I am aware. (Barros e Sousa used to bottle and sell a few fine young pure "Soleras" such as the Bastardo 1965 which was a blend resulting from the tiny production of a few Bastardo vines they have tended over the years. I think it was more or less the wine now branded Bastardo Reserva Velha.)

Paul

[Roy Hersh]

In the Adegas in Madeira I was surprised how few Soleras were going on in cask. There were a few though, very few!