Madeira wine

“ Now that real Madeira wine has become a scarce commodity connoisseurs praise it extensively, and it is to be hoped a few years will enable the island again to supply a genuine article instead of the spurious trash commonly sold under the name of Madeira wine. The real thing is 15only to be found in choice old cellars, and no doubt a glass of it is a very great treat. ”

“ I do every justice to good old sherry when it does make its appearance at table; it is a noble wine when aged and unsophisticated from its youth; but for once that you meet with it genuine, you are twenty times disappointed. When Madeira wine was in vogue, the island could not produce the quantity required for consumption, and the vintage from the north side of the island, or of Teneriffe, was substituted. ”

“ To consider with care some new Madeiras is—well, for that a man should have perfect health and entire tranquillity of mind. Sir, the drinking of these great wines is something more than a social ceremony or the indulgence of an appetite. It is, sir,—but I see Francis smiling—you may imagine the rest. I had an old friend who, when dying, declined to have his wine whey made out of a famous old Madeira, saying that it was a waste of a good thing on a palate which was past knowing sherry from port. ”

“ There is no more sensitive wine to climatic influences. A delicate Madeira, taken only a few blocks on a cold, raw day, is not fit to drink; and again, you might as well give a man champagne out of a horse bucket, as to give him a Madeira in a thick sherry or claret glass, or a heavy cut glass. The American pipe-stem is the only glass in which Madeira should be given, and when thus given, is, as one of our distinguished men once said, “The only liquid he ever called wine.” ”

“ The wines of Madeira are in like manner adulterated or wholly manufactured in England, which from these devices may justly claim the title of a universal wine country, where every species is made if it be not grown. The basis of the adulteration of madeira is vidonia, mingled with a little port, mountain, and cape, sugar-candy and bitter-almonds, and the colour made lighter or deepened to the proper shade, as the case may require. Even vidonia itself is adulterated with cider, rum, and carbonate of soda to correct acidity. ”

“ The principal varieties of Madeira are Malvasia, Bual, Sercial, Tinta, and Verdelho (the Verdea of Tuscany) . In England, Madeira is now within the reach of all. At the beginning of this century, it was known only to connoisseurs. The “fine rich old Boal” is fairly familiar, and if we may trust the wine merchants, the “Very Superior Old,” variously described as full, soft, golden, delicate, and mellow, is gradually winning its way into public favour, since that same “soft fulness,” added to a delicious and yet pungent flavour, produces a drink “altogether superior” to the best Sherry. ”

“ When heat greatly exceeds moisture, the wines may be mild to mouth and nose, yet they are exceedingly potent; witness the vino d'oro of the Libanus.
At Funchal I also tasted a very neat wine, a vin de pays with the island flavour and not old enough to become spirituous. If the vine be again grown in these parts, its produce will be drunk in England under some such form. But Madeira has at last found her 'manifest destiny:' she will be an orchard to Northern Europe and (like the England of the future) a kitchen-garden to the West African Coast, especially the Gold Mines. ”

“ Wormwood wine, too, was a favourite morning stimulant with intoxication; and it cannot be denied, that if modern guests were condemned to a “pint of salt and water” with their wine, the hilarity after dinner would not be of a very joyous aspect. Some of the “sea-wines” of the Greeks, however, owed their name and reputation chiefly to being immersed, in casks, in the ocean. Our Madeira may thus be called a “sea-wine,” when it has been to the East Indies and back for the benefit of its health. ”

“ The want of bread becomes more sensibly felt in length of time than that of a strong liquor. The Portuguese of the Amazon carry small quantities of Madeira wine, from time to time, to the Rio Negro; and the word madera, signifying wood in the Castilian language, the monks, who are not much versed in the study of geography, had a scruple of celebrating mass with Madeira wine, which they took for a fermented liquor extracted from the trunk of some tree, like palm-wine ”

“ Now, however, the national taste has changed; the supply of Madeira not sufficing for the demand, the class called boticarios (apothecaries) brought rivals into the market; and extensive imitation's with apples, loquats (Japanese medlars) , and other frauds, brandied to make the stuff keep, plastered or doctored with Paris-plaster to correct over-acidity, and coloured and sweetened with burnt sugar and with boiled 'must' (mosto) to mock the Madeira flavour, gave the island-produce a bad name. Again, the revolution in the wine-trade of 1860-61 brought with it certain Continental ideas. ”

“ His two surviving sons have worked hard and advertised on a large scale; they issue a yearly circular, and the result is improved enquiry. Till late years the world was not aware that the Madeiran vine has again produced Madeira wine ”

“ It might be worth while to apply electricity in the form used to destroy fusel-oil. Lastly, the wine made for the market is a brand or a blend, not a 'vintage-wine.' At any of the armazems, or stores, you can taste the wines of '70, '75, '76, and so forth, of A 1 quality; and you can learn their place as well as their date of birth. But these are mixed when wine of a particular kind is required and the produce becomes artificial. What is now wanted is a thin light wine, red or white, with the Madeira flavour, and this will be the drink of the future. ”

“ That is why there is so little good wine in Charleston and Boston. They bottle their wine. Incredible as it may seem, sir, they bottle their wine."
"That is sad," returned Chestnut, gravely.
"Keep it in demijohns in moderate darkness under the roof," returned Francis. "Then it accumulates virtue like a hermit. I once had a challenge from the Madeira Club in Charleston to test our local theory. They sent me two dozen bottles of their finest Madeira. When we came to make a trial of them, we were puzzled at finding the corks entire, but not a drop of wine in any of the bottles. ”

“ Two generations have disputed its parentage."
"I might be mistaken," said Wilmington. "There are Madeiras so like some rare sherries as to puzzle any palate."
"I myself," said Hamilton, "have an inherited belief that it is Madeira. It is difficult to tell, at times, a very old Madeira from a very aged sherry. The Burd wine was remarkable because no one could decide this question. I have heard an old friend remark that the age of all great wines brought them together as to taste. Thus a certain Charles March grape-juice and Blue Seal Johannisberger were scarcely to be told apart." ”

“ Having had your champagne from the fish to the roast, your vin ordinaire through the dinner, your Burgundy or Johannisberg, or fine old Tokay (quite equal to any Johannisberg) , with the cheese, your best claret with the roast, then after the ladies have had their fruit and have left the table, comes on the king of wines, your Madeira; a national wine, a wine only well matured at the South, and a wine whose history is as old as is that of our country. I may here say, that Madeira imparts a vitality that no other wine can give. ”

“ Madeira wine had for a century been in high and deserved reputation, when on a sudden some fashionable physician discovers that it contained more acid than sherry. Whether he was a sleeping partner in some Spanish house, or whether he had received a present of a few pipes of sherry, that he might turn the scale of public favour towards that wine, I know not; but certain it is, that it became fashionable with all medical gentlemen to prescribe sherry; and when once any thing becomes fashionable, c’est une affaire decidé. ”

“ Water, wine, and fresh beef, were the supplies procured at Madeira. Wine for the ship's company was charged at the enormous price of 5s. 8d. per gallon, and the beef at 10d. per pound; I therefore took only small quantities of each. For good Madeira, we paid as much as £42. the pipe. Fruit and onions were in abundance, and probably were not of less advantage to the health of the people than the more expensive articles.
The latitude observed in Funchal Road was 32° 37′ 44′′ north. The longitude, as given in the Requisite Tables, is 17° 6′ 15′′ west ”

“ Old Madeira wine has always been very popular in Washington, especially on the tables of their Honors the Justices of the Supreme Court. For many years supplies were obtained from the old mercantile houses in Alexandria, which had made direct importations prior to the Revolution. During the Fillmore Administration many Washington cellars were replenished at the sale of the private stock of wines and liquors of the late Josiah Lee, of Baltimore. Fifty demijohns of various brands of Madeira were sold at prices ranging from twenty- four dollars to forty-nine dollars per gallon ”

“ And this man says he has no palate! That is the charm of these lovely wines: they are many things to many lovers—have for each a separate enchantment. I thought it was a rose-water taste; but no matter, you may be correct. But Hamilton can give you a better wine. No grape-juice can compete with the best Madeiras. In wine and man the noblest social flavors come with years. It is pure waste to ask to dinner any man under forty. ”

“ Age improved them, and made them the poetry of wine. They became the color of amber and retained all their original flavor. But it is an error to suppose that age ever improved a poor Madeira. If it came here poor and sweet, it remained poor and sweet, and never lost its sweetness, even at seventy or eighty years,{269} while the famous Madeiras, dating as far back as 1791, if they have been properly cared for, are perfect to this day. We should value wine like women, for maturity, not age. ”

“ The same estate, planted with the same vines, may produce high class wines and others that would hardly command a market, if the soil varies according to the degrees of certain localities. It would now be impossible to produce Madeira wine in Cyprus, although the plants might be imported and cultivated with the greatest attention. When the vines were shipped from Cyprus and planted in Madeira during the rule of the Venetians, it must not be supposed that those vines had ever produced wine of the well-known Madeira flavour and quality ”

“ There is a common prejudice against Malmsey, as being a lady’s wine, and sweet; when very old, no Madeira can beat it. I have now in my cellar an “All Saints” wine, named after the famous Savannah Quoit Club, imported in 1791; a perfect wine, of exquisite flavor. My wife’s grandfather imported two pipes of Madeira every year, and my father-in-law continued to do this as long as he lived. When he died he had, as I am told, the largest private cellar of Madeira in the United States. ”

“ How refined, how delicate it is!"
"Ah, you will learn," cried Wilmington. "But wait a little. A grape-juice never becomes what we denominate a Madeira."
"I don't agree with you," said the host.
"We are in very deep water now," laughed Francis. "I, myself, think the finest of the old dry Madeiras were once sugary maidens."
"Nonsense," said Hamilton, passing the next wine. "With the sun."
"Why with the sun?" said Chestnut, infinitely delighted by these little social superstitions and the odd phrases.
"Because it sours a wine to send it to the right," said Wilmington, dryly. ”

“ The Warden tested these modern wines, and recognized a new flavor, but gave it only a moderate approbation; for, in truth, an elderly Englishman has not a wide appreciation of wines, nor loves new things in this kind more than in literature or life. But he tasted the Madeira, too, and underwent an ecstasy, which was only alleviated by the dread of gout, which he had an idea that this wine must bring on,—and truly, if it were so splendid a wine as he pronounced it, some pain ought to follow as the shadow of such a pleasure. ”

“ Every grape is full, ripe, and luscious, and the wine partakes of its quality. Nothing can prove more clearly the necessity of the grape being fully, and even over ripe, than the difference of the wine produced on the north side of the island of Madeira, where this perfection of the grape can scarcely be attained, and that grown on the south side: the latter is luscious and rich; the former is Cape, or little better. Now, at the Cape, the object of the farmer always is to get the greatest quantity of wine from his vineyard ”

“ The natives have "that tired feeling," and do just as little work as will earn them a scanty living. They, however, blame this condition on the Government.
The group was at one time celebrated for its wines, but a blight came on the vines and the business of wine-making is greatly reduced; besides, Madeira wine has gone out of fashion of late years.
FUNCHAL
The Madeirans dress like comic opera bandits and are very picturesque in appearance, and while they look like Lord Byron's corsairs, they never cut a throat nor scuttle a ship under any circumstances; they are the mildest of men. ”