In a chilly wine warehouse in the Bronx two weeks ago, a famous Portuguese winemaker pried ancient corks from 5-gallon glass demijohns of 19th century Madeira. Was the wine inside still drinkable? Madeira ages longer than other wines, but 150-plus years?
I won’t keep you in suspense. Amazingly, the answer was yes.
One demijohn held a dry sercial Madeira from 1846. Dry, spicy, tangy, and rich, it had piercing acidity and fresh, spicy aromas that lingered even in an empty glass. Another from the same era, a medium-dry apricot-colored verdelho, smelled like apricot, tobacco, and rose petals, and still had an opulent, multi-layered fruitiness that made you want to take another sip. And both are more than 170 years old.
The wines are from a collection of 18th and 19th century Madeiras discovered last year during a renovation of the Liberty Hall Museum in New Jersey. And on Dec. 7, Christie’s will offer them along with some regular-sized bottles of Madeira dating from 1796, at a sale in New York.
Francisco Albuquerque, winemaker for the Madeira Wine Company, along with cork experts from Apcor, the Portuguese Cork Association, and wine specialists from Christie’s were gathered at the warehouse to oversee the opening and recorking of the demijohns, and check to see that the wine was still alive and kicking.
But surprise! The liquid in four of the demijohns turned out to be old bourbon, not Madeira. Edwin Vos, Christie’s head of wine for Europe and a Madeira expert, first thought it might be rum. The bourbon will go under the hammer, too. Smooth and round, the one I tasted was excellent, but not nearly as complex and delicious as the Madeiras.
So how did these bottles get saved from oblivion? Thank Google.
Liberty Hall, originally constructed in 1772, was expanded to a 50-room family residence by the prominent, politically active Kean family, which owned it from 1811. When John Kean Sr. inherited it 12 years ago, he began turning the building into a museum, which he now heads.
Last year, during a renovation, they discovered one of the largest collections of 18th and 19th century Madeira in the United States in the attic and behind a wall in a dirty, cobwebbed cellar. It included about 42 demijohns and a couple of dozen bottles of Lenox Madeira, imported by the late Robert Lenox in 1796, and probably hidden during Prohibition. Some were empty, some were not.
“I knew wine deteriorated in hot conditions, so I thought the wine in the demijohns would all be spoiled by spending so many years in the attic,” admits Kean. “I was prepared to give them to staff members to use for making lamps.”