Had this last week with the Mountain Jamboree Boys, and finished up the bottle back at home a couple days later. It’s a special wine, thought it deserved its own thread.
A very limited production Solera with vintage 1900 as the primary base layer and then added to annually after that. Not sure exactly what the makeup is for the remainder. ChatGPT suggests mostly all early turn of the century contributions. Certainly shows like an extremely well-aged, very mature Madeira. This is history in a glass. Pretty cool to be drinking a wine that was in barrels years before WWI ever started. Made from Malvasia, the sweetest of the Madeira varietals - I generally prefer Sercial and Verdelho - but this wine had a nice level of acidity to carry the deep richness of this wine. Pralines, creme brûlée with burnt sugar coating, juicy ripe raisins and rum-infused bread pudding. Followed for three evenings, then finished a couple days later, lovely stuff just very rich. Made for small pours. (95 pts.)
Ahhhh, love this! There are few things more satisfying in the world of wine than enjoying an ancient bottle of madeira. Thinking about what was going on in the world at that time, how challenging it must have been to produce wine back then…oh, and not to mention the fact that they taste freaking delicious!
Here is a response I got from Blandys whe enquiring about their 1864 Grand Cama de Lobos Solera.
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.
As to my knowledge the parameter for repetitions is rmax=10, withdrawal amount wmax=10% of cask volume for each distribution/repetition, leading to a calculatory rest amount of the initial wine (base Vintage) of >=0.9^10=34.87%.
Since the 10% withdrawal is a max, as is the repetition number, it could well be that more than 50% of initial wine is included.
Also, the frequency of distribution is not fixed nor requested, so “periodically” is not what comes to mind.
Hi @Rich_Brown. Yes, two bottle now. The top note was from when I drank this over a few weeks so I got the full journey this wine has to offer. The 2nd was a 60ml pour at the end of a wine group dinner.
1864 Blandy's Madeira Malvazia Solera - Grand Cama de Lobos - Portugal, Madeira (10/25/2024)
Smells of coconut, caramel. Raw brown sugar mixed with the most tart bitter red fruits, with a slightly creamy finish. Some vanilla drops in there too. Incredible!!!
Plus 1 week. Intense brown sugar and vanilla into reduced acidic golden syrup into tart red currants into fresh pork smallgoods, into dried wood (with drying wood tannins) and dried Shitake mushrooms. 98.
3 weeks later. Concentrated syrup, caramel and vanilla into porcini mushrooms into beef stock cube. Amazing 98+ (98 points)
Richie assumes me some soft wine aficionado because of my rare talents for writing tasting notes and opining on things as if I know something, while not understanding my elote physiology!
