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This wine better improve with age

Expensive Madeira bottled in 1895

By: Geoff Kirbyson

Posted: 02/13/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Scott Strizic shows one of the MLCC's nine bottles of 117-year-old Madeira.

THE oldest person in the world today was just a baby when the grapes for the latest wine to hit Manitoba liquor stores were first crushed.

Nine bottles of Madeira, a red wine from off the coast of Portugal that has been aging since 1895, are now available at two Manitoba Liquor Control Commission outlets and a trio of private wine stores.

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Babe Ruth (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

It's been a long time

Imagine you had milk that was more than a century old in your fridge.

One hundred and seventeen years is a long time, but it might seem even longer when you consider what happened that year:

-- Rudolf Diesel patented the diesel engine in Germany.

-- The first professional American football game was played, in Latrobe, Pa., between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe won 12-0).

-- George B. Selden was granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

-- FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was born that year. He died in 1972.

-- Famed baseball slugger Babe Ruth (died 1948) and Buster Keaton, American actor and director (died 1966), were born that year, too.

The price? A mere $790.44. Once you include taxes, the final bill rings in at $885.29.

They are the oldest bottles of wine ever offered for sale in Manitoba, said Scott Strizic, product consultant for MLCC stores. They're even older than Besse Cooper, an American woman from Tennessee who was born in August 1896 and is considered the oldest person alive on Earth.

"The Madeira has been aged in oak casks for more than 100 years. Most wines aren't aged for one-quarter of that time in oak," Strizic said.

"We want to bring in some unique products. We think there might be some people who would be interested in it. There are a fair number of people who are interested in port in Manitoba. Madeira is another category of fortified wine," he said.

There is one distinct difference between Madeira and your run-of-the-mill port, however.

"The advantage of Madeira is once you open a bottle of it, you can try it and cork it back up, just like you would a single-malt scotch," he said. "You can will it to your great-great-great-grandkids. They could try it and it will taste almost identical (to now)."

Port, on the other hand, should be consumed within the week or the taste will start to change.

You don't want the liquid to make contact with the cork, either. That's why it should be stored in an upright position so the oxidized aroma can be maintained.

"The taste of the wine could suffer from the fact that the cork deteriorates faster than the wine," Strizic said, noting the cork should be replaced every 40 years or so.

There is little risk that the Madeira will sit on the shelf for another century or so. Three of the bottles have already been purchased. Despite the hefty price tags, the bottles are not the most expensive ever sold in the province. A bottle of Bordeaux First Growth, which sold for about $1,200 a number of years ago, holds that honour.

Unsuspecting MLCC shoppers don't need to worry about accidentally bumping one of the pricey bottles, breaking it and having to pay for it. They're locked up in display cases in the fine-wine boutique section of the stores.

So are there any rules to drinking wine old enough to be your great-great-grandparents? Strizic said it should be consumed in a similar manner to port or sherry -- one or two ounces sipped from a small glass.

The Grant Park and St. Vital MLCC stores have three bottles each.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 13, 2012 B1

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