Blandy’s Bual, 10 Year Madeira, Medium Sweet, Portugal.
This new set of 10 Year Madeira offerings from Blandy’s is outstanding stuff and this Bual in particular is lovely and perfect during chilly evenings and with dessert, being slighter richer and sweeter in style with golden raisins, honey, roasted pecans, dried apricot and burnt orange notes, though still racy, saline and sea shore infused. The Malmsey might be more vinous and more expressive, but this golden/amber hued Bual is one of the finest Madeiras I’ve tried in recent years, finding a fabulous balance in the glass, and it is wonderfully affordable for the quality on offer. So many times, as I’ve mentioned before, Madeira, Port, Marsala and Sherry get overlooked as wine, or thought of as an old persons tipple, so it is nice to see some real excitement coming out of these areas, especially as a new generation emerges from the shadows, both as producers and drinkers of unique styles of wine. Not that there is a huge youth movement in Madeira, but there does seem to be a new vigor and life coming forth, and now there are well established series of 10 year Madeira(s) from Broadbent, Rare Wine Co. and Blandy’s that are hugely responsible for invigorating to this seemingly dusty or old school wine segment. As explained in many textbooks, Madeira is noted for its unique winemaking process which always involves oxidizing the wine through heat, which stabilizes the wine, and usually matured through the solera aging method. Madeira, as I’ve suggested before, is a great alternative to either Tawny Port or Sherry. Madeira, which was originally a historic and tasty mistake, is a fortified wine made on the Portuguese island of Madeira, in the North Atlantic Ocean, where mainly British ships traditionally stopped to stock up before a voyage to the new world, which literary cooked (known now as being Madeirized) as they sailed across the Equator. Madeira is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines, like Rainwater, which can be consumed on their own, as an apéritif, to sweet luxurious wines that are usually consumed with dessert.
Blandy’s Bual Madeira, which is lush and medium sweet on the palate, is part of a new series of varietal 10 year Madeiras which look to make these old school unique wines more approachable to a younger audience, and I was highly impressed with them, especially this one that has richness on the palate and an ease of use. Madeira’s wine industry dates back to the 16th century and the Age of Exploration, when Madeira was a regular port of call for ships traveling to the East Indies, with the earliest examples of Madeira that were unfortified tended to spoil before reaching their destination, making the producers start adding distilled cane sugar alcohol, which created a whole new wine segment. The classic Madeira or noble grape varieties include Sercial, Verdelho, as seen here, Terrantez, Bual, Bastardo, Moscatel and Malvasia, as well as the workhorse Tinta Negra Mole grape. In the past Blandy’s, which was formed in 1811, has been a solid performer and has always offered a good quality to price ratio and this new set is a step up in this regard. Madeira’s mountainous volcanic island terrain and oceanic climate, as mentioned here in prior reviews, is notoriously difficult to cultivate, so vineyards are planted on man-made terraces or poios of red and brown basaltic bedrock. As noted previously the older blends, or Colheitas (single harvest) and Frasqueiras, are produced by the canteiro method with fortification with grape spirit. Because of this, these wines are aged, Madeira can be very long-lived in the bottle, and those produced by the canteiro method will survive for decades and even centuries, even after being opened. The four main types of Madeira wine in the modern era are Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, as seen here, and Malmsey. Typically Sercial and Verdelho, which are drier and lighter, have an alcohol content generally around 18% to 19%, with Bual, slightly sweeter, hovers around 19% to 20% alcohol and Malvasia, called Malmsey, can reach 20% to 22%. It is a great time to re-discover Madeira and Blandy’s is an affordable and exciting way to start that adventure.
($40 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive