This wine was my Madeira epiphany in the early 90’s.
1864 Blandy’s Madeira Solera - Grand Cama de Lobos - Portugal, Madeira (11/26/2017)
153 years old ! Mandarin, apricot, lime, with strong integrated acids, cedar, hazelnut, beautiful balanced, intense and very complex. Impressive !!
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Thanks for the TN’s, y’all!!
I assume that the price of a 150+ year-old bottle of Madeira costs >$1,000?
Less than $100 25 years ago.
La Tâche was less than $200 25 years ago,
too. Everything has soared.
You’re drinking your 1864s already? I haven’t yet started drinking my pre-civil war bottles. . . 
Seriously though, it sounds like a fun wine to taste and discuss. Any idea when it was bottled? I’m guessing fairly recently based on the label and glass in the picture.
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Based on the picture I would guess 1967.
Probably more than $500 but less than $1000. It’s a Solera wine even though it’s a well known Blandy’s one. Madeira prices have escalated considerably over the past 10 years or so.
This 1864 was bottled in 1921 !!
A wonderful Madeira and sadly has gone way up in price over the years.
I was trying to find information on this wine so I emailed the winery and got this response stating that it had been bottled in the 1980’s. Does anyone have recent experience with this one?
The 1864 Solera falls under the “Solera” category, which is defined by Madeira wine legislation. This means it is not a single vintage wine, like a “Frasqueira.” Instead, it contains at least 10% of the wine from the original 1864 vintage, as stated on the label.
In line with traditional Solera production, the process allows for the addition of 10% of younger wine from the same grape variety after a period of 10 years. This can happen up to 10 times, after which the entire batch must be bottled. In the case of the 1864 Solera, the first wine would indeed have been from 1864, and over time it was refreshed with younger wine, always of the same variety, ensuring consistency in character.
As for aging, it did spend an incredibly long time in barrel—over 100 years. During this period, the wine was regularly “refreshed” with 10% of younger wine, until it was finally bottled in the 1980s.
Glad you enjoyed it!