John Hornick Chef’s A.
Google
Anyone who reads my reviews knows we are wine lovers, but we knew nothing about Madeira’s namesake wine. And — being sweet — we were not sure we would like it. But we signed up for the Vintage Tour on an afternoon when rain threatened, and the tour changed that. You can await your tour in leather comfy chairs in the far end of the wood-beamed gift shop, or outside near the wall of flowers. We chose both. While we were waiting outside, we checked out the winery’s restaurant, which looked like a good future dinner spot. Stepping back into history, our great tour guide then led us through the myriad charming old buildings on the property, where we learned all about Madeira and saw many very big old oak barrels with wine aging as long as 75 years. There’s also an interesting museum and we saw a library of old bottles reaching back to the early 1800s (alas, they don’t offer library cards). Because Madeira only ages in casks, not in bottles, the wine in the library’s old bottles should taste the same as the day it was bottled (see, we learned a lot), but we’ll never know about those bottles. But the tour includes a tasting, in a clubby, wood-paneled room with lockers of more old bottles, along with some magnums and larger. By tasting four ten-year Madeiras made from four different grapes, along with a 1988 vintage, we also learned that Madeira is not as sweet as Port and not as harsh as Sherry. Last cocktail party fact: the island’s economy runs on three engines: Madeira wine, tourism, and — wait for it — bananas. To support the economy and to have a nice apéritif or after-dinner drink back home, you can buy bottles here at a discount, then pick them up after security at the airport, so you can carry the bottles on the plane. But after those bottles are but pleasant memories, the challenge will be to find good stuff like this in the U.S. But we like a good challenge. YouTube’s Chef’s Apprentice
