He rubs the ancient grime away from the glass, and to his
surprise an ornately dressed and very jolly genie emerges
from the bottle riding on a cloud. The genie is happy—thrilled
in fact—at being freed from the bottle, which has been an
unhappy prison for a very long time. Did I say a long time? It’s
been hundreds of years that the genie’s been cooped up in the
bottle, and he is ready to party… provided the camel driver is a
good wisher.
Not all wine is pure. Our vast and modern technology has
made it possible to create stable and predictable bottles from
different regions in different years and send them across the
planet without much trouble. Wine is a kind of produce, yet we
seldom think about how we move it around and hide it away
without it going bad on us. Refrigeration helps. Imagine what
it was like when enormous wooden casks of wine spent weeks
crossing the oceans under the decks of sweltering ships. It was
rotten is what it was. The wine simply rotted away and dried out.
Whoever was waiting for it at the other end could not have been
happy. The solution was to introduce an impurity—a distilled
grape spirit—into the wine to preserve and stabilize it. The
alcohol stops the fermentation process and keeps whatever
bacteria lingering around at bay. Wine treated in this way is
known as “fortified.” The brandy defends the wine like the walls
of a fortress defend a city.
Once upon a time in America, more or less all wine was
fortified. It had to be. California had yet to be discovered and
the few paltry experiments with winemaking in the colonies
were disastrous. It’s said that the Declaration of Independence
was toasted with Madeira, a fortified wine from that Portuguese
island off the coast of Africa. Port, from the Portuguese
mainland, is another historically important fortified wine, as
is Sherry from Spain and Marsala from Italy. Wine makers
can control the sweetness by adding the spirit to the wine at
different times; the earlier in the fermentation process, the
sweeter the taste. As a result, fortified wines run the range from
the driest fino Sherry to the sweetest Malmsey Madeira.
Despite the range of flavor and use of fortified wines, they
do have something in common: they age slowly and live for
generations. Madeira from the 1800s is a common sight in well-
Wine is a kind of produce, yet
we seldom think about how we
move it around and hide it away
without it going bad on us
stocked wine shops, and many Port lovers disdain the idea of
drinking wine younger than themselves.
I recently opened a bottle of 1958 Madeira made from the
Boal grape as a kind of pre-holiday celebration. The wine is
dark brown and clings to the sides of the glass as it rolls
around. It smells old, but not in a bad way. The aroma of the
grapes is still strong but it’s wrapped in a scent of caramel and
vanilla. The smell reminds me of my grandmother’s pies cooling
in the kitchen as autumn turns to winter. The taste? Put it this
way: it will be a while before I can dream up another two wishes
for the genie.
Once in a Lifetime
Madeira, before the world forgets about it. Madeira last forever.
You can find bottles from the late 1700s that are drinking well
now. Of course you can find non-vintage blends that won’t
break the bank, but this is once in a lifetime… so warm up the
credit card and buy something from before your lifetime began.
Generally speaking, the different grape varieties are made to
different sweetness grades. Sercial is dry, Verdelho just off dry,
Boal is sweet, and Malmsey is very sweet. But no matter how
sweet they are, vintage Madeiras keep a lively acidity prevent
them from becoming a bore.
Whenever You Can
I can’t imagine the holidays without Port. Late night family
snacking on cookies, cakes, and nuts wouldn’t be the same
without a little Port. A lot of good so-called Late Bottled Vintage
Ports are out there for a good price. The idea here is the wine
is aged longer in the casks before being bottled, and hence are
better to drink sooner. Drink up, though. A bottle of Madeira
may last for months after the cork is pulled, but Port loses its
charm much more rapidly.
Whenever You Want
One of the simple forgotten pleasures of life is a bone-dry fino
Sherry served ice cold with some cured ham. As far as value for
cost goes, fino is hard to beat. Without it, tapas might not have
been invented.
