Thanks for the mini-review of this - I've been wondering about V Sattui Madeira, but didn't want to risk $36 on an American "Madeira" without getting some kind of word on what it was like or actually making it up to St Helena to give it a try.
"I am not sure it is sold anywhere except at the winery, although I think they do ship within the reciprocal states of the US."
It doesn't go through a distributor, but apparently there will sell to retail shops by mail order. I've only seen it at Beltramo's, in Menlo Park, CA - they carry it for $36, so they must get it for a wholesale price.
The description of the wine on the Settui website is interesting:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?P2CB1127C
Its apparently Zinfandel-based and nothing like a true Madeira in the way its produced. They start by making a fortified Zinfandel, then enter it into a solera system - apparently they've got stocks of this wine going back a century. Its not estufad and I don't think the barrels are ever put in hothouse conditions.
All in all, it sounds like a worthwhile fortified sweet wine. Unfortunately, it shares the unfortunate method of branding that most American fortifieds suffer from - rather than invent new names for the wines and building up a distinct reputation, they borrow (or, to put it less kindly, rip off) the name of distinct region-specific Old World wines - hence, California "Madeira" and California "Port".
Ironically, California does have its own unique style of sweet fortified - Anglelica - that apparently dates back to Spanish California. Angelica was made from the Mission grape, fortified, and then placed into a solera system. Its almost entirely disappeared, though many wineries use the names for any number of wines that are made from any number of varieties of grape, which may or may not be fortified and are rarely if ever solerad. A few wineries - Bonny Doon, Gypsy Canyon, and Picchetti - are actually trying to make something close to the original - a sweet, fortified, Mission-based wine. However, none of these are put into a solera, since old barrels of Angelica are simply non-existent.
Peter