For The Love Of Port

I opened a bottle of this wine to taste with the chef doing my Madeira dinner in Spring of 2009. The bottle was decanted and then returned to the bottle about 8 hours before the tasting to give it sufficient air to show its best. And it certainly did!

The color was a dark brown with some lighter hues on the rim. The nose was fabulous, nuts and toffee. On the palate, the wine exhibited only the hint of sweetness on the finish, but was really a medium dry wine overall. The flavors were that of nuts, game meats, and a bit of toffee.

When the chef and I were tasting the wine, my wife and I happened to have a course consisting of duck confit and crispy antebellum grits in front of us. We tasted it with the wine and all agreed it would be a tremendous match, so that course with this wine will be the third course of the dinner.

All the best,
John

John,

It is a great and very popular Madeira. Glad to see you have had the opportunity to try one of the legends that remains today, very available ... although a lot more pricey than it used to be when I first bought a few bottles more than a decade ago. I look forward to your actual tasting note and especially your report on your Madeira tasting in May. Please do consider taking pictures and then penning a GUEST CORNER article. Thanks!

I bought one of these from The Rare Wine Company a couple of years ago.
Not sure when I will ever open it.Thanks for your post and look forward to your TN.

Roy Hersh wrote:John,

It is a great and very popular Madeira. Glad to see you have had the opportunity to try one of the legends that remains today, very available ... although a lot more pricey than it used to be when I first bought a few bottles more than a decade ago. I look forward to your actual tasting note and especially your report on your Madeira tasting in May. Please do consider taking pictures and then penning a GUEST CORNER article. Thanks!

Hi Roy,

I've had this one before on a couple of occasions, however it's been a few years. I don't think it's ever failed to deliver, although I saw that you had a bad bottle last year. You hate when that happens with a $500 bottle!

I would be more than happy to do photos and an article for the newsletter. Unfortunately, I've had to put the dinner off until May of 2009 because the chef is opening his own place and he won't be ready for this May. I didn't learn that until I went to do the tasting with him a couple of weeks ago. He's really interested in the wines and he's the right guy for the job, so I'll stay with him and push the dinner back. Expect an article after that however.

All the best,
John

John,

That sounds good. Sorry that the dinner had to be pushed back though. I think there will always be room for a great GC Madeira article!

BTW, I had the 1834 three times in 2007 and one of them was at Barbeito.

So are you now free to come along with us to Madeira since your dinner is cancelled?

Tasted (non-blind) Dec 9th, 2009 - it's now 175 years-old!
An excellent bottle, and a great sipper.
This bottle had more acidity showing than the previous notes (alongside the various toffee/nuts etc). This lifted it and carried the flavours through - evolving all the time. A superb tipple - just short of being my best of the year but absolutely a contender.
Probably at its peak now - I don't think I'd hold for another 25 years to make the 200 yr anniversary.