Due to the shutdown of my isp, I had to change the email address for any correspondence concerning the MadeiraWineGuide!
Please note that wopereutter@nwn.de is no longer working!
The new address for any questions or comments about Madeira wine is wopereutterNOSPAM@PLEASEweb.de. However - please be patient with any answers... (remove the NOSPAM and PLEASE parts)
Peter
Summer is finally over, autumn is here and it is Madeira drinking time again! In my opinion rather heavy wines like Madeira do not drink so well when it is hot. So even when the weather is turning to clouds, wind and rain, the really good thing is: now is the time for drinking Madeira wine (again).
So now is also the time to fill up your Madeira wine stocks if you haven’t done this already. I generally prefer the 10 year old or 5 year old blends for everyday drinking. Also Colheita wines are a very good value when it comes to special occasions. And some three year old wines are certainly worth giving them a try before using them for cooking only…
This is the first post using the newly installed Windows Live Writer technology with the Madeira Wine Guide website and I am really anxious to see how this is going to work out.
Enjoy your autumn time - cheers!
Peter
For those of you in search for some more heavenly nectars besides Madeira wine: I was lucky enough to taste a couple of Sherries, Montillas and others at the Prowein 2008 wine-fair in Düsseldorf, Germany in march, so here are the tasting notes:
Sherry:
Alvaro Domecq
PX 1730 20YO
Coffee color, thick and viscous, sweet and fruity nose, sweet palate with lots of acidity, toffee and caramel, raisins as well, long toffee finish. Very good!
Aranda Cream
Dark tawny, nutty nose and sweet palate with nuts and almonds, slightly yeasty. Made from 80% Oloroso and 20% PX, well balanced.
Lustau
East India Solera
The famous „hot house sherry“ from Lustau, showing a medium iodine brown, nose with dried fruits and bread, palate quite sweet with dried fruits as well, yeasty, nutty, high acidity, finish of medium length. Even though this sherry undergoes heating like the cheaper Madeira wines, the result is completely different.
Fernando de Castillo
PX 3YO
Dark iodine color, nutty nose with chocolate, sweet palate with nuts and raisins, chocolate finish with medium length, well done for such a young PX.
Bodegas Tradicion
Pedro Ximenez 20YO
Very dark brown, almost black in color, complex nose with sweet raisins, figs, cinnamon, amazing palate with 380 gr/l sugar, but high acidity to balance it out perfectly, toffee, raisins, figs, nuts, and cinnamon again, with a long and complex finish, what a perfect dessert wine – or as a dessert on its own!
Bodegas Hidalgo
Alameda Cream
Bright tawny, nutty nose with figs, sweet palate with nuts, orange peel, lots of acidity and a long nutty finish.
Triana PX
Coffee color, raisin nose, the palate is very sweet with almonds, figs and raisins, toffee finish of medium length.
Williams & Humpert
Oloroso Reserva Especial 15YO
Medium dark iodine, sweet oxidized note, reminding me of a good Madeira wine, but the palate is all sherry of course, nutty, just a hint of sweetness, a little coffee as well and then a long nutty and slightly bitter finish, very complex and well done.
Sanchez Romate
PX
Dark cola color, sweet nose with dried plums, coffee, raisins and caramel, the very sweet palate is dominated by figs and raisins, very complex, with a long raisin finish.
Montilla-Moriles:
Bodegas Navarro
Medium Cream PX
Bright coffee color, sweet toffee nose, palate with lots of caramel and toffee, quite sweet with enough acidity to counterbalance the sweetness. A well done sweet wine for dessert.
Pale Cream
Pale and bright yellowish lemon color, quite misleading, nutty and yeasty nose, sweet palate with lots of acidity and surprisingly dry finish, interesting wine and very unusual.
Amontillado Muy Viejo Solera Fundacion 1830
Tawny color with very nutty nose, lots of almonds too, dry palate, very nutty, complex, almonds and a long dry and nutty finish that goes on for one minute, amazing wine.
Pedro Ximenez 5YO
Dark cola color, nose with lots of figs and raisins, sweet palate with figs, raisins and enough acidity to go along, long raisin finish. Well done.
Pedro Ximenez Solera Fundacion 1830
Dark coffee color, nutty complex nose with figs and raisins as well. The palate is very sweet, with a texture and viscosity like crude oil, very complex, lots of toffee, caramel too, dried fruits, raisins, long sweet finish with figs and raisins and just enough acidity. A dessert of its own, with stunning complexity, very sweet but... wow.
Arrope
The pure grape juice of PX, slowly cooked until it becomes a thick and dark sirupy liquid, essence of grape aroma, together with caramel, no alcohol at all, perfect for dessert, with vanilla ice cream and pancakes. A great experience, and my kids liked it a lot!
Douro:
Moscatel Favaios 10YO
Golden color, typical moscatel nose with raisins, very sweet moscatel palate with orange and a little lemon, enough acidity to balance the sweetness, lemon finish of medium length.
Moscatel de Setubal:
Casa Ermelinda Freitas Moscatel Superior 2000
Bronze color, nose with typical moscatel flavor and apricot as well, the palate is all apricot and typical moscatel raisin flavor, very sweet and enough acidity to go with it, long and sweet apricot finish.
A long term project of mine has finally come to a good end:
Please find the complete text of "A Madeira Party" online now here at www.madeirawineguide.com.
The story "A Madeira Party" by Silas Weir Mitchell was first published in 1895. Since then it has been published in about 30 different versions, most often together with a second story "A little more Burgundy". The text shown here is taken from one of the earliest publications in 1895 from The Century Co., New York, printed by The De Vinne Press.
I used the original text layout and all the typos are exactly from the original (or so I hope). Anybody interested in obtaining "A Madeira Party" as a printed book is advised to get the 1975 edition of Corti Brothers, Sacramento, still available from the company. This book also contains a very interesting essay on "Our Madeira Tradition" by Roy Brady.
Some contents of "A Madeira Party" might not seem "correct" these days, but of course the story has to be seen in its historical context. I find it quite entertaining, especially since it offers an interesting glimpse back into American history. Also for the Madeira wine lover it contains lots of information about old Madeira wine drinking habbits, general knowledge about Madeira wine and some myths about Madeira wine too. And even though I feel very much at home in the 21st century, I envy these guys their full decanters of Madeira wine...
To find the complete text please click on "Silas Weir Mitchell's A Madeira Party" on the right side.
Enjoy reading!
Peter
After revising and updating the new producer's chapters are online now, together with new pictures, email-addresses and www-links. Please check them out carefully and notify me of any misspellings, corrections, suggestions.
Thank you and enjoy reading!
Peter
So you bought this old Madeira wine bottle from a private source and now you have your doubts about its authenticity?
Then the freshly revised and updated chapter "About Old Bottles" should be interesting to read for you.
As always any comments, corrections and suggestions are highly appreciated.
Enjoy
Peter
We now have a new Madeira Wine Forum courtesy of ForTheLoveOfPort. Please check out, register for and enjoy the MadeiraWineGuide Forum and also check out Roy's introduction posting. And while you are there, check out the rest of the forums on anything related to Madeira, Port, travel to Portugal and more!
Take me to the MadeiraWineGuide Forum!
Due to the growing number of entries, I decided to split them into the Madeira Wine Guide and a Guide to Madeira Island.
The former will be dedicated solely to Madeira wine, the latter will feature entries of general interest with a focus on information for visitors to the island of Madeira.
Over the next months many of the now empty entries in this Guide to Madeira Island will come to life, please have patience!
As always, any hints, suggestions, corrections, typos, etc. are highly appreciated!
Thanks!
Peter
Many tasting notes are online now! I will dig out all the older tasting notes eventually and post them as time permits. Even though I have tasted a lot of the 3 YO, 5YO, 10YO and 15YO blends, right now I do not intend to post them, since this would really lead to an overflow of tasting notes. Also the colheitas and harvest wines will have to wait.
Please enjoy reading the tasting notes - feedback wellcome!
You might have noticed that some of the pictures are online now. About half of the total pictures is still missing, but we're working on it. The report on the Seattle Madeira wine tasting and the tasting notes are online now. Please mail in any typos, corrections, whatever - thanks.
...and the pictures are going to follow soon, please be patient. You are welcome to mail in all typos and corrections - thanks.
...and made some progress. We re-edited the following chapters:
Many pictures are still missing, but we are doing our best to get them in soon.
Also we posted some new chapters:
In these new chapters the pictures are missing too, but if things go well we will post them this weekend!
Any comments are highly appreciated, so please feel welcome to mail in any typos and corrections - thanks!
...with all the conversion updates. I'll try to finish them this weekend.
Once the conversion is done we will have three new chapters for our readers. I promise some very exciting stuff for you Madeira enthusiasts!
Well, it's still not done but there are many chapters online already. Please check them out and let me know of any typos and corrections - thanks!
Dear visitors,
As you can tell we are in the middle of revamping MadeiraWineGuide.com with a more user friendly and easier to navigate layout. By migrating to the Blogging platform Movable Type we enable such things as:
- visitor comments and discussions
- more frequent updates
- better structuring
The upgrade should be done after this long Memorial Day weekend! Let us know how we are doing by posting some feedback below!
Thanks!
-Hans Reutter