Wine information:
This is a special order item and can take 5 days or more for delivery. Please telephone 01329 822733 for availabilty.
For 200 years, Blandy’s Madeira has been synonymous with quality Madeira wine. The Blandys are unique in being the only family of all the original founders of the Madeira wine trade to still own and manage their own original wine company. The family has played a leading role in the development of Madeira wine throughout its long history and members of the family continue to live on Madeira, maintaining a tradition that goes back to 1811. Blandy’s Vintage Sercial 1966 is a single harvest Madeira. This wine was aged for 38 years in seasoned American oak casks in the traditional ‘Canteiro’ system, whereby the casks were gradually transferred from the top floors of the lodge, where it is naturally warmer, to the middle floors and eventually to the ground floor where it is cooler. The wine was regularly racked and when it reached the desired stage of maturity it was bottled. Only 2,404 bottles of this wine were released. Vintage (or Frasquiera) Madeira must be aged in cask for a minimum of 20 years, in practise they are aged for much longer, before being bottled under Madeira Wine Institute supervision. The wine must then be aged in bottle for a further two years before being released for sale. Madeira is a complex, interesting wine and is made in virtually every vintage. Due to the unique estufagem aging process Madeira is one of the longest-lived wines and also improves for days after opening, but will keep, once opened, for a month and more in a decanter. It makes an ideal wedding or anniversary present. It has a topaz colour with golden reflections. Intense and complex characteristic bouquet of Madeira, with dried fruits, wood and orange peel. Dry and fresh with a long and warn aftertaste. "Fine complex nose. Concentrated burnt sugar, big style, yet elegant and well integrated. Medium to long. Good." Wine International, September 2006.