The two wines that are the subject of this post tell a similar story, a history of how wines were made and travelled the globe in a different time, a tale of how the style survived the centuries and found a place in the heart of modern-day wine drinkers.
Fate smiled on the sailors in the days of sail ships. The currents of the Atlantic run north to south along Europe and then turn east to west. Just about where the current turns is the archipelago of Madeira, a fortunate place for ships to stop on their way to America. Naturally, colonies were settled there and they made a living from farming, fishing and vinegrowing/winemaking and then trading with the passing ships. The sailors who bought barrels of wine in Madeira found out that the heat and humidity turned the wines sweet and savory both, and soon the style was formalized, the barrels where the wines were matured subjected to heat and humidity on the islands, before transport to the American colonies.
Thus are wines born, man capitalizing on accidents and whims of fate.
Barbeito, Boal, 10 Years Old Reserve
Barbeito's 10 Years Old Reserve series are an affordable introduction to high-end Madieras. They're actually even more than that, they're the rung just before the very expensive vintage Madieras. The Boal is musky and pungent, yet also honeyed and spicy, liquid walnut pie and orange jam. I've drunk this, as well as the Sercial and Malvasia 10 Year Reserves in the past. I'd say the Sercial is the most savory of the three, the Malvasia the richest and this, the Boal, freshest and most refined. There's also a Verdelho, the fourth Madeira grape, which I've yet to taste.
Emilio Lustau, Jerez-Xérès-Sherry, East India Solera, n.v.
I used to drink quite a lot of sherries 16 years ago, mostly Lustau. I miss those days when I knew a producer so intimately, seemingly the only one in Israel, exploring the range all on my own.
The East India sherry is a unique style of sherry, not made by any other producer. Britain was sherry's primary market in the 18th and 19th century, but when it was shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, it was subjected to the same conditions as Madeira was. Lustau deliberately mimic that effect by exposing the wines to heat and humidity. Formally, it's a cream sherry, which means it's a blend of Oloroso (the style that emerges when the flor in the solera where the Fino Palomino based wines mature dies and the wine starts to oxidize) and Pedro Ximinez for sweetening. The way cream is used to sweeten coffee. The style means the East India doesn't show iodine, cured means or any of the pungent aromas and flavors that develop in wines matured under the indigenous yeast, flor. Instead, there is a fruitiness reminiscent of Vintage Port, but off on its own tangent. What I pick up are dark, orange chocolate, candied fruit, pecan pie and... hints of blood. It's deceptively deep and the finish is very intense and long. It might strike you as totally wrong for our climate - it does require a cold, snowy Yuletide and a warm fireplace - but one should always find a place in the heart for an old fashioned digestif.
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