Madeira basics for the Whisky drinker
Part 3 in this little fortified wine series.
Madeira is a fortified wine that occupies a range of flavours from sweet toffee to dry almonds. It has a distinctive oxidised toast taste to it due to the way it is made. Wine from Madeira was fortified to stabilize it for the long sea journey to the New World and an unsold shipment returned better than when it left – due to high temperatures and rough handling of the trip – and a whole new category of wine was discovered.
(This is why it had to be shipped)
Today this heating and aging process is no longer carried out on ships but on dry land in a process called Estufagem.
Grapes are grown on hanging trellises in Madeira, to control fungus and rot in the island’s sometimes unhelpful weather.
Of course we know that Madeira casks are sometimes used to finish or mature whisky, but it is not a modern thing apparently:
In 1927 the connoisseur George Saintsbury lamented that: “the older whiskies were darker in colour from being kept in golden sherry or Madeira casks, rather sweeter in taste, and rather heavier in texture.”
(Source: https://www.bruichladdich.com/library/whisky-casks-and-oak/real-sherry-casks)
There is some regrettable opacity on how and which Madeira casks are sourced for the Whisky industry. We know Dalmore had a Malmsey matured Black Pearl, So did Bruichladdich, and the Murray McDavid range had a Malmsey finished Macallan. But I have not turned up any known Bual, Verdelho or Sercial cask matured whisky – though Glenglassaugh does have a 1979 39 year old ‘Sherry Style Finish’ out on sale now, which going by the blub did seem to have been martured in Verdelho and Sercial casks for a ‘Sherry’ finish.
Last macabre pre bedtime fact:
In Shakespeare’s tragedy Richard III, George Plantagenent, the Duke of Clarence is drowned in a butt of Malmsey by assassins sent by Richard.
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