As an American, Thomas Jefferson had no peer in his appreciation of French wines.
But that seed wasn’t planted until he was in his forties, by which time he’d been passionate about Madeira for at least 20 years.
Like others of his time, Jefferson had his own Madeira preferences. While a student, he fell in love with a “recipe” for a particularly elegant Madeira he’d learned from the wife of his law school mentor.
That recipe called for a blend of one-tenth “superfine Malmsey” with nine-tenths dry Madeira. Jefferson never lost his taste for what he came to call “silky Madeira.”
Decades later, he defined “silky” wines as having the taste of “dry wine dashed with a little sweetness, barely sensible to the palate: the silky Madeira we sometimes get in this country is made so by putting a small quantity of Malmsey into the dry Madeira.”
Deep and complex, one of our favorite non vintage Madeira's produced. Notes of walnuts, espresso, dried fruit, beeswax, candied citrus peals, and spices. Layers of fruit, spice, acid linger for a long time on the finish.
