MADEIRA - Styles of Madeira
5 important questions on MADEIRA - Styles of Madeira
Why is blending important for Madeira and how can you blend
- Most Madeira is a non-vintage product so for consistency of style year-on-year:
- blending wines from different vintages and vineyard locations
- from different barrels in different areas of the warehouse
- To achieve a certain style or for complexity
- young wines from estufas with some Madeira from canteira blended for complexity of flavours
Which adjustment/treatments are allowed for Madeira wine after maturation?
- Fining
- filtering
- caramel to add colour (for inexpensive Madeiras)
- carbon fining can be used to strip colour
- RCGM can be added to increase sweetness
- Blending to decrease sweetness with some drier win
Name some labelling conventions for Madeira
- grape variety
- level of sweetness
- length of ageing
- single or multiple vintages
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Which sweetness levels can Madeira be?
- Extra dry
- dry
- medium dry
- medium sweet (or medium rich)
- sweet (or rich)
('Dry' even has some sweetness)
How are quality Madeiras labelled
- Varietally
- level of sweetness does not need to appear on the label
- ALL Madeira must be labelled with a bottling date (since 2015)
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