WTN: M'dear

1950 Madeira Malvazia, Julio Barros

Deep copper color. Closed in very tight when uncorked. Almost no aroma, shy fruit but lots of rough, astringent acidity. Long astringent finish. I didn't bother with the nitrogen dispenser. A glass I poured the next day had opened up a lot and now had complex aromas of caramel and citrus peel. Mouth-filling flavors that follow the aroma, along with pleasant sweetness and again astringent acidity. Long, rough finish. I'd give this one another twenty to fifty years in the bottle. If I thought I'd live that long, that is. Next time I'll be sure to decant the wine, put the stopper in the decanter, and shake it vigorously for a minute or two. Then let it sit for a day or two before drinking. Triple Moe.

The bottle doesn't have a producer's label. It just has "1950 JB Madeira Malvazia" stenciled in white on the bottle. There is an importer's label on the back with the BATF-required information--importer's name and address and Surgeon General's warning. It was brought in by the Rare Wine Company in California. I have the producer's name in my records as "Barros". The producer's full name seems to be "Julio Barros".

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

That sounds thrilling--I love Madeira. I have a few in my cellar, the oldest is a 1900. Can't seem to find the perfect opportunity to open it.

I've been a vintage Madeira fan since the late 1980s when a Boston-area wine store (Winecellar of Silene in Waltham MA) started importing Blandy's Madeira. The star of that tasting was Blandy's 1920 vintage bual. You could smell the wonderful aroma of the wine as soon as you entered the store, even though the tasting table was at the back of the store, yards away. That got me hooked. The Rare Wine Company in California was importing a bunch of different vintage Madeiras, all the way back to the early 1800s. I got a couple of bottles of Blandy's 1834 malvazia and still have one. This 1950 is one of the younger Madeiras in my collection.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

All of mine came from RWC too, Paul, including my first Madeira experience: an 1827. We split the cost of that bottle with a friend and we bore the cost of groceries for a six course meal I prepared to go with it, inspired by a Wine Speck article about a Sauternes dinner Wolfgang Puck cooked similarly for. Amazing to drink a wine whose grapes shared oxygen with Thomas Jefferson, for one. I still have the bottle.

I've got some '54s. Also, from RWC but thru the Royal Family when Prince Charles lightened up his cellar, I own the Madeira that was bottled for his investiture as PoW, (I forget what vintage the wine is, 40's I think), the Madeira that was bottled for Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee in 1977 and the Madeira that was served at his and Diana's wedding (all custom-labeled for those events). Additionally, I have a few of RWC's own brand Madeiras named after American cities though god knows why, which are fantastic.