Madeira Wine Company
About Madeira Wine Company
Madeira is a fortified wine from the island of Madeira, located southwest of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean. During the 1600s and 1700s, the wine had to be fortified to prevent spoilage and the island of Madeira was a convenient stop for voyagers to stock up on supplies, including casks of Madeira wine. During the voyage, after being subject to heat, the Madeira wines evolved, taking on deeper nutty and caramel flavours, eventually becoming a style of its own. Madeira can be produced at different levels of sweetness, and some of those offered today make truly delectable dessert wines.
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Jancis Robinson (18)
A carpenter’s workshop, filled with the scent of freshly sawn and planed wood. Sweet tobacco. A distinctly feral, ‘animal’ smell. Dried meadow flowers and hay. Dried orange-peel dust. Something almost lactic. It changes from sip to sip, moment to moment. First dry, then sweet. Bitter, for a second, then turning tender. Jagged edges melt silky smooth from along the slim ribbon of its structure. Demanding and volatile; then tucking charms into your palm. The intensity of the flavours – explosive bitter-sweet oranges, hit-gingered quince, cinnamon and cumin, sour cherries in Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena, decayed-wood dust – is startling, and yet the wine is fine-boned, almost ethereal. William Chester Minor, surgeon, wordsmith, schizophrenic and one of the greatest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary, was attributed the quote, ‘Listen to the leaves scratch the air. Sometimes it sounds like gunfire. Sometimes like applause.’ I thought of those words when I tasted this wine. Food pairings: spanakopita; cauliflower pakora with spiced onion chutney; welsh rarebit; fried grouse with orange sauce.Inc. VAT£480.34
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Jancis Robinson (18)
A carpenter’s workshop, filled with the scent of freshly sawn and planed wood. Sweet tobacco. A distinctly feral, ‘animal’ smell. Dried meadow flowers and hay. Dried orange-peel dust. Something almost lactic. It changes from sip to sip, moment to moment. First dry, then sweet. Bitter, for a second, then turning tender. Jagged edges melt silky smooth from along the slim ribbon of its structure. Demanding and volatile; then tucking charms into your palm. The intensity of the flavours – explosive bitter-sweet oranges, hit-gingered quince, cinnamon and cumin, sour cherries in Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena, decayed-wood dust – is startling, and yet the wine is fine-boned, almost ethereal. William Chester Minor, surgeon, wordsmith, schizophrenic and one of the greatest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary, was attributed the quote, ‘Listen to the leaves scratch the air. Sometimes it sounds like gunfire. Sometimes like applause.’ I thought of those words when I tasted this wine. Food pairings: spanakopita; cauliflower pakora with spiced onion chutney; welsh rarebit; fried grouse with orange sauce.In Bond£396.00