These vintage or frasqueira wines are the top wines of Madeira. The ripening potential is almost unlimited.
This madeira of the highest quality must have been at least 20 years in barrel plus two years in the bottle before sale can take place. This wine used to be vintage madeira. A frasqueira must consist entirely of one of the top varieties mentioned on the label, together with the harvest and bottling year. Frasqueira's always come from one good crop year. They have undergone a mild temperature treatment and have been stored for a long time in wooden barrels. After bottling, the quality of frasqueira no longer changes.
These madeira wines are inventoried in view of their uniqueness.
Food-pairing
Cheeses such as blue cheeses, Stilton, Gruyere, manchego, & Emmenthal. Dried fruits.
Crème Brulee, caramel desserts based on apples, apricots, pecans, cherries, almonds, hazelnuts, dried figs & vanilla ice cream desserts. The excellent companion to a pipe, cigar or aromatic tobacco.
Grapes: Terrantez
is a hard to grow white medium sweet grape variety. It can not withstand moisture well and that is why the slopes on the east coast are best suited. The breed has become rare, barely 5ha and 500 kilos. Typical of terrantez is a certain bitterness and an aftertaste reminiscent of roasted coffee and ashes.
Alcoholcontent
19,5%
Store & Serve
Always keep a Madeira wine upright.
The acids of Madeira are so strong that they attack the cork if the bottle is stored lying down
Serve at 18 °C
Madeira is a wine that has ripened for several years in an oxidative environment, and then enters a reductive environment when bottling. It is therefore useful to open the bottles a few hours in advance. The bottles can then be kept almost unlimited, since the air has no influence on Madeira wines. In fact, the wine tastes better after months - if it remains - than when the bottle is opened.
Critics & Awards
95/100 - Decanter World Wine Awards
Tasted: 01-Jan-2017
Gold - Decanter World Wine Awards, 2017
96/100 - Jamie Goode