NV Blandy's Sercial Madeira 10 Year Old
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Tasting notes
Full bottle 1,310 g. A new set of these 10-year-old wines was launched in spring 2025 with smart, clear bottles containing more wine sourced from Blandy’s relatively cool site in Canical. The range is available in 75-cl bottles or in a set of four 20-cl bottles. Grapes from vines either at 600 m on the south of the island at Jardim da Serra, or at sea level on the north at Seixal and Porto Moniz. TA 6.8g/l, RS 55 g/l. The price is as high as it is presumably because these vinifera varieties are so rare. Very pale tawny. Rather softer than I expected, but that probably makes it more charming – and the acidity certainly asserts itself on the finish. Very revitalising. You could certainly drink this as an aperitif. (JR)
Critic scores
Average Score
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Full bottle 1,305 g. Manual harvest. Pellicular maceration followed by 8–10 days of fermentation with ambient yeast at temperatures between 18 and 21 °C in temperature-controlled tanks. Fortification with abv 96% grape spirit. The final wine is a blend of Madeira wines with an average ten years’ ageing in seasoned oak casks in the traditional canteiro system. Fined before bottling. Cork stopper. RS 55 g/l, free SO 2 15 mg/l, total SO 2 30 mg/l. Pale golden amber. Salty prune flavours. Very nourishing. (JR)
Tasted from a 37.5-cl sample bottle. Average age of 10 years from oak casks in the canteiro system. TA 6.8 g/l, VA 0.42 g/l, RS 55 g/l, pH 3.35. Certified BCorp. Like breakfast on the run on a cold summer morning: bitter coffee, grapefruit, bitter orange, apricot – not quite ripe; the smell of rain coming in on a north-east wind; a sense of hurry and tension; the rip of determination; iodine in the mouth; focus. (TC)
Sercial usually is the driest wine, and the NV Sercial 10 Year Old, which mixed grapes from the south at 600 meters in altitude and from the north at sea level, has only 55 grams of sugar, compared with the up to 125 grams of other varieties in the 10-year-old category. This has a bright and pale color. There's aromatic complexity, higher pitched, nutty and nuanced. It's quite sharp and has a low pH of 3.35. This is real Sercial. It's sweet but balanced. It was bottled in August 2024.