Madeira, nothing to fear

A bottle, rediscovered during lockdown clearances, reminds Jonathan Ray how much he loves the stuff. Mrs Ray, however, thinks Madeira is not the only thing that’s aged…

MY wife says that it proves I’m a doddering old fool. I say that it proves I’m broadening my horizons. She says I’m a lush. I say it takes one to know one. She says… Oh, hang it, you don’t need to hear all this, we can go on for hours. The point is that during lockdown I tried to make myself useful by clearing out what I refer to as my cellars but are in fact a pair of cobwebbed cupboards under the stairs.

One or two treats that I’d forgotten about were uncorked immediately and knocked back. There was also an embarrassing amount of vinous dross that was cooked with or poured away. There were old bottles of vermouth, some out-ofdate tonic water, oxidised rosé and all manner of open spirits and liqueurs that I had been using for impromptu cocktailmaking classes with No 2 teenage son.

At least he’s open about his alcoholic consumption. Recently, my poor neighbour was bemoaning how light in alcohol vodka was these days. The bottle he’d recently popped in the freezer had frozen solid, which it had never done before. I looked at my feet and said nothing. Everyone in the street, but he, knew that his 15-year-old daughter was hoovering through the hooch with her school friends. His face was a picture as it slowly dawned on him that the reason his vodka was a rock-hard block of ice was because little Miss Smarty Pants had had so many sips of it and had watered it down so much that little spirit actually remained.

Anyway, I digress. Tucked at the back of one of the cobwebbed cupboards was a dusty bottle of Madeira. Desperate for booze during lockdown, I had opened it and got stuck in. And, blow me, it was lipsmackingly, tongue-tinglingly gorgeous, all nuts, honey and toffee. I’d forgotten how much I loved Madeira.

As you know, Madeira is made on the island of that name that lies far out in the Atlantic, some 530 miles south-west of Portugal, its mother country. Mrs Ray reckons the wine, like the island, is the preserve of pensioners only and that my rediscovered love for it proves what an old fart I have become. Thanks, darling.

If you’re old enough to remember the wickedly droll Flanders and Swann song Have Some Madeira, M’dear, then, yes, you’re probably the wrong side of 60. But you don’t have to be in your dotage to enjoy a hearty glass now and then.

The island’s early settlers often used barrels of their indifferent wine as ballast on long, hot sea voyages through the tropics, finding to their surprise that not only did the wine survive but that it also tasted better for it, the heat of the equator having effectively ‘cooked’ it. Producers soon learned to replicate this effect with the estufagem process, during which they heated barrels of fermented wine to 55°C before fortifying it with grape brandy. By the 18th century, Madeira was widely celebrated: it was drunk at the signing of the American Declaration of Independence and was hailed by George IV as ‘the best wine in the world’.

It’s fair to say that the wines have plummeted out of fashion. There are fewer than a dozen producers left and supermarkets here rarely stock more than one or two examples. The leading independent merchants keep the Madeira flag flying, however, and names to look out for include the Madeira Wine Company, Blandy’s and Henriques & Henriques.

I recently retasted the range of the latter two producers and, crikey, what a treat. I went through the card several times, starting with the driest Sercial, then Verdelho and Bual, and working my way through to the rich and mouth-fillingly sweet Malmsey.

Because these wines are, in effect, cooked and therefore already oxidised, they can last forever, even once opened, unlike port, and are wonderfully versatile. Sercials and Verdelhos make excellent aperitifs, while top-quality Buals are ideal at the end of a meal. The finest Malmseys deserve to be savoured on their own, ideally around 11am on a trying morning.

You can even make Madeira cocktails. Slosh 70ml of Henriques & Henriques 10 Year Old Sercial Madeira into a shaker along with 25ml of fresh lemon juice and 25ml of sugar syrup. Shake over ice and strain into a martini glass, garnishing with freshly grated nutmeg. My teenage son lapped it up. Old farts need not apply.

You don’t have to be in your dotage to enjoy a hearty glass now and then