A very elegant nose with a touch of rancio volatility that sings against a rich backdrop of toffee, prunes and a prickle of baking spice and sweet liquorice. Weighty but wonderfully fresh on the palate with sweet dried fruit, warming spice and a touch of something savoury, charry, almost medicinal. This wine walks the tightrope of richness and finesse beautifully.
Bright, amber-coloured and light golden nuances. This wine offers us a complex aroma of dried fruits, jam and some wood. Full-bodied, rich and smooth with a taste of nuts and honey. Very pleasant aftertaste.
Henriques & Henriques
Aromatic interest aplenty, with complex tea smells lifting out of caramelised date richness. Grilled bread, nuts and polished timbers add interest to the sweetness. The palate is rich and lush, perfectly balancing old concentrated prune richness with fresher, grapier, perfumed lift, and there’s no heaviness or cloying. There’s graceful earthiness in the sweetness and the acid outruns the sugar, carrying iodine and nut past the caramel into a fresh, perfumed finish.
Scott Wasley, The Spani
A blockbuster wine, commanding respect rather than love, of which a few sips suffice.
Alex Liddell, Madeira: The Mid-Atlantic Wine
Deeply woody and bricky, opens to tea, fine adobe, honey, pippy sweetness, with lantana herbals and chocolate. The treacly richness exists within an amazing aromatic liveliness, thanks in part to a rainwater-juicy freshening lift. Very deep in the mouth, the palate interplays marmalade and molasses, with lots of complex volatile development character and wood-
