NV Blandy’s MCDXIX Winemaker’s Selection
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Tasting notes
The NV MCDXIX Winemaker Selection has 22% alcohol, denoting concentration by evaporation and age, a pH of 3.48 and 95 grams of unfermented sugar per liter of wine. It has wines from 11 vintages, the oldest from 1862 (Boal) and the youngest from 1988 (Terrantez). It has a dark and bright mahogany color, and it has concentration, acidity, richness and intensity, all in a single wine. This is an exercise for a master blender that epitomizes Madeira wine in a single bottle. It's old and complex but energetic and elegant, with volatility and length. It has terrific balance. The wine IS TERRIFIC! Only 600 magnums were produced. It was bottled in 1999. Price reflects scarcity and age.
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Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Tasted from a 20-cl mini sample bottle. From vines over 50 years old. Lot 19036. Bottled 26 July 2019. Released 5 September 2019. A special bottling to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the discovery of Madeira. Only 600 magnums released. RS 100 g/l. Dark brown and redolent with acetone, maple-syrup-soaked pecans. Chestnuts in tamarind. Warm spices, cinnamon, nutmeg. A whisper of verdigris in the fire-lit gleam of toffee. The dragon-breath glow of mountain-mine rubies. The moonlit halo of sea-salt gold. A wine that pulses with the urgent indigo beat of an artery, the sleepless pull of midnight tides, the smoke of stone-ringed pyres drumming memories into dark, star-spilled skies. Calls to mind Silvia Plath and her Ariel: 'Stasis in darkness. / Then the substanceless blue / Pour of tor and distances. / God’s lioness,' God's lioness, this wine…
Tasted from a 20-cl mini sample bottle. From vines over 50 years old. Lot 19036. Bottled 26 July 2019. Released 5 September 2019. A special bottling to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the discovery of Madeira. Only 600 magnums released. RS 100 g/l. Dark brown and redolent with acetone, maple-syrup-soaked pecans. Chestnuts in tamarind. Warm spices, cinnamon, nutmeg. A whisper of verdigris in the fire-lit gleam of toffee. The dragon-breath glow of mountain-mine rubies. The moonlit halo of sea-salt gold. A wine that pulses with the urgent indigo beat of an artery, the sleepless pull of midnight tides, the smoke of stone-ringed pyres drumming memories into dark, star-spilled skies. Calls to mind Silvia Plath and her Ariel: ' Stasis in darkness. / Then the substanceless blue / Pour of tor and distances. / God’s lioness,' God's lioness, this wine… (TC)
A wine blended to commemorate the discovery of Madeira by João Gonçalves Zarco in 1419. Wines from 1863 to 2004. There are eleven wines in the blend in total, including three from the rare Terrantez grape. Only 600 magnums to be released in September 2019. Medium-sweet style: 34 g/l dry extract, RS 95 g/l, TA 10.5 g/l. Blending this involved opening up all manner of ancient bottles – 1863, for example. ‘The less I knew about it the better', says Chris Blandy. Brownish tawny with a green rim. Complex nose with obviously many ingredients. Mellow. Chestnut, butter, treacle, acidity! Passionfruit. Very fresh. Energetic. Even a note of brazil nuts. No shortage of interest in this extraordinary wine. (JR)