Madeira: One of the world’s greatest wines and a star of contemporary dining in the making
Last week in Tokyo I was privy to one of the finest tastings I have yet to be a part of, an extensive Madeira tasting, care of Kinoshita International, the importer of Vinhos Barbeito. While Barbeito wines were the grist of the tasting, wines from other houses were also featured, including fine examples from D’Oliveira and Blandy’s.
The tasting was conducted over three-and-a-half hours on a sweltering day, in a small room. There was nothing glamorous about it. The air-con, stuck on some laminate tiles and dilapidated concrete, groaned against the moral quandary of power-saving in lieu of the recent earthquake. Yet surely, nowhere else in the city presented such a gob-smacking microcosm of deliciousness. We tasted wines back to the late 18th century, all delicious; some bedazzling. The gravitas of the wines however, was juxtaposed against not only the heat, but also the hush of incoherence when it comes to selling special wines such as these.
This is the caveat when speaking of wines like Madeira, but also Sherry and Marsala: fusty vestiges of the Victorian era on one hand; complex, uplifting and invigorating elixirs that work with a range of foods, on the other. How is this divide crossed? In my view, it is crossed by appropriating these wines to contemporary dining situations, be it at home or in a restaurant. It is in restaurants however, that dynamic servers and sommeliers can get wines like these, often overlooked and misunderstood, under the noses of the public. While tasting, I thought just how well some of the wines would synergize with Peking duck and other sweet and salty Chinese, or even Japanese dishes; game; simple roast chicken and even the parry of sweet, sour and spicy of Thai food.
While many of us working with wine in major American cities, London, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Barcelona, in particular, can think beyond the square; the rigidly compartmentalized approach to wine and food pairing in Japan means that Madeira rarely sees the light of day outside of Portuguese restaurants, which are few.
In past articles I have used the word ineffable when speaking of certain wines, for which, words fail to do justice. This tasting only served to frustrate me further on one hand, as similar terms to express variable degrees of nutty, fresh, oxidative (cheesy, rancio), volatile and other synonymous descriptors came rattling off my pen. Paradoxically, the length of the tasting, languorous setting and the sheer glory of the wines, enabled me to experience the ebbs and flows of textures, persistence and the lingering length of flavours, while wallowing in their layers and drifting off to various tunes in the mind’s eye. I ceased trying to put words to it all. Attempts to do so became tiring, paltry and boring, considering the crescendo of sensorial experiences that I was undergoing.
So instead of writing tasting notes in the conventional form, I will try to illustrate my highlights in a sort of sensorial shorthand. Before I try to do this however, the styles of the three houses whose wines were shown were distinctly different: Blandy’s wines are rich, sweet, warm and torrefacted in an avuncular way; D’Oliveira’s style is the driest, producing bony wines that are almost severe without being anorexic; while Barbeito’s wines emphasize poise, with just enough residual sugar to balance the terse acidity in the wines from the Sercial grape, while retaining suitable acidity to give tone to the sweeter wines from the Malvasia grape, for example. Barbeito does not add caramel to enhance colour and, against the grain of popular opinion, believes in the nobility of the oft-maligned Tinta Negra (black) grape for producing top wines, suggesting a vein of experimentation and forward thinking.
My highlights
Barbeito Colheita (100% Tinta Negra) 1995: a ‘single cask’ (actually, two single casks) wine that shimmied between a richness and an edginess, giving a long ricocheting sensation in the mouth, akin to eating hot soup before immediately chewing on the brine of a citrus fruit. Incredibly stimulating stuff! Peking duck, please!
Barbeito Malvasia 30 YO-Lote Especial: this wine is an homage to an older style of winemaking that saw extensive blending across many very old wines. Warm and more cuddly than the typical Barbeito style. A mesmerizing potpourri of aromas and flavours: more exotic than walking into a Chinese herb store.
Barbeito Sercial 1978: a purist’s dream. Like a Turkish scrub in the mouth, soothed by a bouillon-like warmth. Long, tangy and enchanting. This wine was initially so rich due to evaporation in the cask and encroaching (very high) levels of acidity and sweetness, that it was put into glass demi-johns for further aging, before bottling.
Blandy’s Sercial 1966: rich cacophony of warm spirit aromas-rum and bourbon-with a raisiny core; made savory by a pungent dairy aroma, like washed rind cheese. Blandy’s richness is tamed, to a degree. Off the charts this wine! I do realize that I have hypocritically resorted to standard wine descriptors here.
Barbeito Sercial 1910: like a jazzed up and yet, paradoxically, very sophisticated version of a pina colada! Tropical high tones driven by a taut and febrile underlying swathe of acidity. I wanted to play Peter Allen to this wine!
Barbeito Boal 1863: overflowing with a beefy flavour, framed by shrill volatile acidity that, in this parry and thrust between generosity and tensile energy, works wonders. Slithers down the throat into a never ending,moreish finish. Not a graceful wine but very, very impressive!
Barbeito Malvasia 1834: Precise and as sharp as a razor, despite being made from Malvasia.
Barbeito Terrantez 1795: Ever-long, etched and tangy. Mellifluous wine, the ease of which belied the perceived seriousness of drinking something so old!