I'm happy to finally say we're expanding our repertoire!
We're hosting an MIT alumni tasting of Madeira wine this Thursday, 6/16/16, at Gordon's Fine Wines and Liquors in Waltham, MA. I became interested in fortified wines (of which Madeira is a type) due to my interest in whisky, since a lot of whiskies are matured in casks that previously held fortified wines. Of all the types of fortified wines (sherry, port, Madeira, marsala, and vermouth are the notable ones), Madeira struck me because it has a lot of the rich, oxidative flavors found in some of my favorite whiskies...
...and it can be really freaking old! The oldest whisky I ever had was 50 years old (that's 50 years in cask, and just a few in a bottle), so it was distilled in the late 1950s or so. It turns out there are Madeiras that are much older than that, and we're tasting one at this event.
Here's the lineup:
- Rare Wine Company Charleston Sercial
- D'Oliveira 1937 Sercial
- Rare Wine Company Savannah Verdelho
- D'Oliveira 1973 Verdelho
- Rare Wine Company Boston Bual
- D'Oliveira 1977 Bual
- Rare Wine Company New York Malmsey
- D'Oliveira 1875 Malvasia
You read that correctly - one wine from 1937 and another from 1875. That's only ten years after the end of the U.S. Civil War! I've never tasted anything this old. I had a chance to nose both the 1937 and the 1875 recently and they smelled absolutely sublime.
Very much looking forward to sharing these historic wines with our fellow MIT brethren.
