Henriques and Henriques 1976 Terrantez Madeira
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Terrantez is the scarcest of Madeira's noble grapes and the most prized: delicate, low-yielding, and prone to rot, it was nearly lost to oidium in the 1850s and largely passed over when the island replanted after phylloxera. Henriques & Henriques, founded in 1850 and based in Câmara de Lobos, bottled this 1976 in 2006 as a single-vintage frasqueira, after twenty-nine years in cask on the canteiros, the lodge trestles that give the method its name. Raisins lead the nose, with a touch of vanilla and wood; lemon and honey follow, and the finish lingers on almond. Sweetness sits midway on the Madeira scale, and the balance is exact. A Portuguese rhyme holds that Terrantez grapes are not for eating or giving away, since God made them for wine; it says nothing against pouring the wine for friends, which is just as well.
