For The Love Of Port

Broadbent Madeira Colheita 1996. (Is this really a type of Madeira... I tried it at a restaurant in California while here on business and wondered about the fact that it stated "Colheita" on the bottle. Is this a decent indicator of what real Madeira is actually all about? (I have never had anything in the form of Madeira before and have to confess to still being at odds and confused by Boal vs Verdelho vs Terrentez (which I gather is simply made from one type of grape) to Solera, etc.

Anyway, I have no official TN because soon after sampling this Madeira I became extremely ill with what I believe to be food-poisoning from the meal I had delivered to the hotel room - what a way to ruin a brand newbie-experience with Madeira... regardless, what I DO remember was thinking "smells and tastes like raisins...."

Todd

Todd,

Congratulations on losing your Madeira virginity.

Sorry to hear of your miserable experience. Having worked in the food business my whole life and being married to a gal in the Public Health sector, I can tell you that "food borne illness" takes a very minimum of 12 hours and more typically, a minimum of 24 hours to show symptoms."

Onto Madeira. Read the Madeira articles (from the FTLOP PP .pdf version of July 2006) and I think you will have a much clearer idea about what constitutes a Colheita (fairly new category) and the stylistic differences in Madeira's grapes.

Todd

The Broadbent 1996 Colheita is basically a fairly young madeira and does not have the complexity that you would get from an older version. If raisens and sweetness is all you got, I would suggest a vintage Sercial, which would have much more acidity and tartness to cut the sugar. I know their is another 1996 "colheita" madeira which might be much better...I think it was D'Oliverias (sp?) but you can only tell that from the foil on the neck. That one was fairly nice to my taste, and probably $18 US at BevMo.

Or since you are close to K&L right now, look for the Broadbent Malmsey, for $35-40 US, sweet but very nice. Skip the Rainwater though.

Hope you are feeling better!

Jay

Thanks guys,

Roy, it may just may have been the mistake made at lunch time then... Jack-in-the Box... Having American satallite TV delivered through NFL football and other shows, I see their ads on TV all the time. Having never tried them before, I did so. Perhaps a mistake in retrospect.

In any case, blue cheese was all that was prevalent coming back up

I will be definitely trying to figure out some more about this Madeira stuff. While it is not impossible to find in Edmonton it is rather difficult, but I suspect that I may just not be paying enough attention.

Jay, I am heading back to K&L for a few things (magnum of I think it was Dow's 2003, another bottle of Otima 20 yr and a bottle of better Madeira) and Beltramos for a couple bottles of Taylor 1977.

Todd

Jay Powers wrote: The Broadbent 1996 Colheita is basically a fairly young madeira and does not have the complexity that you would get from an older version. If raisens and sweetness is all you got, I would suggest a vintage Sercial, which would have much more acidity and tartness to cut the sugar. I know their is another 1996 "colheita" madeira which might be much better...I think it was D'Oliverias (sp?) but you can only tell that from the foil on the neck. That one was fairly nice to my taste, and probably $18 US at BevMo.

Just looked at my notes, it was Justinos 1996 colheita that I found suprisingly good, not D'Oliverias

Jay