Thank You
Marco for posting this link here.
I've just copy+paste the piece from the NYC to make the whole piece also available for the FTLOP search tool. :)
Article below.
Thanks a lot.
-Mário-
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/dinin ... JfKQEZKoOw
Vintage Madeira’s Enduring Charms
PRECIOUS SIPS The River Café will offer vintage Madeiras.
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: November 7, 2007
AS the wine director of the River Café in Brooklyn for almost 30 years, Joseph DeLissio has gladly sold vintage Champagnes and old Bordeaux, California cult wines and rare Burgundies. But about five years ago a terrible thing happened: he put some rare old Madeiras on the wine list — and sold them, too.
“If you get to the level where you know Madeira and love Madeira, you hoard them,” Mr. DeLissio said. “They are meant for very special, thoughtful moments, and when you see somebody just down a glass, it’s hurtful.”
Few wines stimulate the hoarding instinct like old vintage Madeira, the fortified wine produced on a jagged Portuguese island about 300 miles off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Because no other wines age as well as Madeira, it’s not uncommon to find bottles from the 19th century, or even the 18th. Not only are they still drinkable, they are in their prime. But very little vintage Madeira is produced, and even less leaves the island that gave the wine its name.
Since those painful sales, Mr. DeLissio has stockpiled vintage Madeira, cases of it, from 1978 to 1863. He thinks he has invested $100,000 in old Madeira, $100,000, mind you, belonging to Buzzy O’Keeffe, the River Café’s owner.
Though his instinct may be to lock the Madeira cellar, Mr. DeLissio has had to face the economic consequences of his obsession and must do what he most dreads. And so, starting the day after Thanksgiving, the River Café will offer 40 to 50 vintage Madeiras, a list outdone in this country only by Bern’s Steak House, a wine-lovers’ destination in Tampa, Fla. A rotating selection of 10 to 15 of them will be available by the glass, and the rest by the bottle.
“Hopefully we won’t sell any!” Mr. DeLissio said, half-jokingly.
What drives a Madeira fanatic? It’s only partly the romance, knowing that a bottle of 1863 Barbeito bual was made the year Gettysburg was fought.
But when you pour a glass of the 1863 and it is stunningly fresh and refreshing, with aromas of spices and roasted nuts, caramels and chocolate, and the flavors ricochet through your mouth like beams of light off mirrors, then you want to have a lot more of that Madeira to savor.
The same is true of a youthful 1969 Blandy’s, made from rare terrantez grapes, which tastes brightly of lemon, lime and brown sugar before fading to — get this — cream soda. Or of a dry, elegant, perfectly balanced 1929 Barbeito verdelho, smelling of grapefruit and walnuts, changing constantly in the glass.
“Madeira is almost like a conversation,” Mr. DeLissio said. “It’s the most thoughtful wine there is.”
Contrarians must love Madeira, because it turns wine facts on their head. Everybody knows wines must be kept in cool, dark places free of excess vibrations. But Madeiras are purposely heated to more than 100 degrees and were once considered best when subjected to the pitching and rolling of ships on long ocean voyages. In fact, it was in the era of colonization when Madeira’s greatness was first recognized, by accident, as legend has it.
In the early 17th century the island of Madeira was a port for those sailing to Africa, the West Indies and America. Ships would pick up casks of wine for the voyage. One time, the story goes, a cask was somehow misplaced and not discovered until the ship had returned. Amazingly, it was judged to be far better than when it had left. Producers began to send wine on voyages, just for the ride. The best were called vinhos da roda: round-trip wines.
Ocean voyages are no longer a part of Madeira production, but today barrels of the best wines are placed in the attics of warehouses to bake naturally under the island sun. The heat; the slow, controlled oxidation of long barrel-aging; the high alcohol content, 17 or 18 percent, after fortification with grape spirits; and the searing acidity of the Madeira grapes render the wine practically invulnerable to the ravages of age. Even opened, a bottle can last months without noticeable deterioration.
Most Madeiras are blends of vintages and grapes. Some can be excellent and more affordable introductions to the pleasures of Madeira, particularly those aged for 5, 10 or 15 years and made with one of the leading noble grapes: sercial, verdelho, bual and malvasia. Sercial is the driest and the lightest of the wines, and malvasia, or malmsey, the richest and the sweetest, though even a malmsey, with its beam of bracing acidity, can sometimes seem dry because it is so refreshing.
But it is the vintage Madeiras, made in minute quantities, that are the most exciting. By law, these wines must be aged 20 years in barrels, although a new category, colheita, or harvest wines, can be released after five years in barrels. In practice, many vintage Madeiras are aged far more than 20 years.
Mannie Berk, head of the Rare Wine Company, a leading Madeira importer, says vintage Madeiras are becoming more expensive. “Between the dollar and its scarcity,” Mr. Berk said, “there’s a growing appreciation that these wines are very valuable.”
While he hasn’t completed his list yet, Mr. DeLissio thinks he will charge $40 to $100 for a one-and-a-half to two-ounce glass and $300 to $1,400 for a bottle. Among his treasures are three terrantez Madeiras and an anise-scented 1927 wine made from the bastardo grape, which is now practically extinct on Madeira.
Mr. DeLissio says he is still searching for old bottles. For the record, Mr. Berk has a few bottles of a 1720 Madeira, which he says is absolutely ethereal. Not surprisingly, he’s not selling.
