1978 Blandy's Madeira Terrantez

Tasted from a 5-cl mini sample bottle. TA 9 g/l, pH 3.35, VA 1.25 g/l, RS 90 g/l. Harvest winemaker João José Teixeira, bottling winemaker Francisco Albuquerque. Bottled 2022. 204 half-bottles, 1,206 bottles, 80 magnums, 15 double magnums, 3 solomons (18 litres). There are only 4 ha of Terrantez on the island (22 growers). An old copper pot, dimpled and burnished with the batter and patina of time, lost, half-hidden in the sifting, restless shadows of susurrating trees as they brush-cymbal with the cooling omen of the first autumn wind. Filling slowly with golden, russet, fox-red puzzle of leaves; the scent of wet earth, mycelium, juniper berries, moss under wood, cloves. In the mouth, an electric shock. Almost burningly minty. Peppermint. Angry and the rumble of dark storm skies; the sweet taste of bitterness; long, long, long and salt-drenched and iodine. Cutting the sky like the steel wires of a suspension bridge in a high wind. Vibrating with the tension of its own pent-up power. Vibrating with restraint. Vibrating with the glory of sunset splitting a storm-bruised-brooding sky wide open with empyrean light. Like tasting the Hallelujah Chorus. (TC)