Celebrating being a new Bird Dad today with some Sercial Madeira that I found randomly in a grocery store in Sedona yesterday. (The Rare Wine Co. Historic Series-Charleston Sercial Special Reserve, to be precise.) Madeira is one of the few good things to come out of Colonialism: a wine that is, for all intents and purposes, apocalypse-proof. How did this happen? Well, wines from the island of Madeira were fortified with brandy, to prevent spoilage, much like Port. The barrels of wine from the island would be placed upon the decks of ships as they traversed the Atlantic trade routes. Over the months at sea, the wine was cooked by the sun, lashed by the salt spray of waves, and became fully oxidized due to the motion of the barrels upon the dark and rolling sea.Today, Madeira is intentionally aged in such a way to imitate this process. And it ages for nigh-on forever. The oldest wine I've ever tasted was a Madeira from the late 1920's, and it still tasted phenomenal. I could go on for ages about the role that Madeira played in instigating the American Revolution, which is fascinating, but I'll just sum it up simply: the Foundinf Fathers of the United States loved it, couldn't get enough of it, and when John Hancock's ship that carried a cargo of around 3,150 gallons of the stuff was siezed by the British, it caused riots to erupt in Boston. (Tasting a wine like this, you begin to understand why.) There are four main types of Madeira produced today; Sercial, which this wine is, is the driest of the four. This wine is a rich, caramel orange color; the birder part of me wants to call this hue "rufous," and wouldn't be far off. This color is caused by the oxidation of the wine and the heating of the wine during the process to make it; it's not an amber wine. On the nose of this Madeira, I smell aromas of vanilla, toasted pecans, caramel, salt spray, toasted marshmallow, and the warm heat of alcohol. The palate is savory, and a perfect pairing with the cigar I chose. Toasted almonds intermingle on the palate with notes orange peel, cinnamon, caramel, with a long, lingering finish with bracing acidity. #madeira #sercial #dessertwine #wine #wineandcigars (at Jerome, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_TCiEInw3R/?igshid=30c755wfoq3