Broadbent Rainwater Madeira 375ml

Aged in oak casks for at least 3 years. Esteemed for its concentrated aroma and subtle flavor, it can be served as an apéritif or as an after dinner drink. Madeira, warm and luscious in both its dry and sweet variations, makes an excellent wine for winter and the holiday season. Clear dark reddish-copper in color, it breathes classic and very appealing Madeira scents of dried dates and figs and mixed nuts. Smooth and gently sweet, it's not a \"sticky\" dessert wine but shows good fresh-fruit sweetness built on Madeira's sturdy core of tart, lemony acidity.

Region Description

Madeira is a fortified Portuguese wine made in the Madeira Islands. The wine is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own as an aperitif, to sweet wines more usually consumed with dessert. Cheaper versions are often flavored with salt and pepper for use in cooking. The islands of Madeira have a long winemaking history dating back to the Age of Exploration when Madeira was a standard port of call for ships heading to the New World or East Indies. To prevent the wine from spoiling, neutral grape spirits were added. On the long sea voyages, the wines would be exposed to excessive heat and movement which transformed the flavor of the wine as the wine producers of Madeira found out when an unsold shipment of wine returned to the islands after a round trip. Today, Madeira is noted for its unique winemaking process which involves heating the wine up to temperatures as high as 140°F for an extended period of time and deliberately exposing the wine to some levels of oxidation. Due to this unique process, Madeira is a very robust wine that can be quite long lived even after being opened.