Example of a molded bottle, the seam is clearly visible. Picture shown with the friendly permission of Reidar Andersen
The Bottle
Basically there are three types of bottles. This does not refer to the shape of the bottle, but to the way the bottle was made. Madeira bottles tend to come in many shapes and sizes. The modern bottles are often not as heavy anymore as they were like until the 1960ies, and in my opinion the color of the glass also has gone to the brighter side. There are two main shapes of bottles: burgundy-shaped bottles and bordeaux-type bottles, the latter often with a little bulge in the bottle neck. There are also many other shapes or variations of the two main shapes, especially when it comes to hand blown bottles. The color is often a dark green, but there is almost any colour possible, you can even find a few clear glass bottles. All in all this variety shows, that bottling Madeira wine obviously was a day to day business and it also reflects the sometimes poor and hard conditions of wine making.
Hand-Blown
Bottles
Until the 19th
century the method of blowing a piece of molten glass with a pipe and some other
simple devices into the shape of a bottle was the only way to produce wine
bottles. There was of course the method of casting, where you simply heated the
glass to a higher temperature and then let the liquid glass run into a
mold where it cooled down. But the
molds where rather roughly shaped and the extra
amount of heating material needed to liquefy the glass made the method of
casting unsuitable for the production of higher numbers of any containers made
of glass. You could also blow the molten glass into an outer
mold, so that the shape was assumed quickly and the
variations between two containers became smaller. In the 19th century then, the
method of pressing was developed to perfection and the industrial production of
bottles began.
Because of the method, the size and shape of hand blown bottles vary greatly. Since the process of blowing includes rotating the piece of molten glass, you can often (not always) recognize some circular patterns in the glass that result from the rotation. The strength of the bottle wall may vary from top to bottom, visible by small variations of transparency of the coloured glass. Also hand blown bottles tend to have a relatively long neck when compared to molded or machine made bottles. Sometimes you will find a sign on the bottle, but normally the bottle is void of any markings.
Pre-Industrial
Manufactured Bottles
As said above, you
could blow the molten glass into a mold, thereby
shaping the outside of the glass container. This was done manually at first,
later there where automatic blowing machines that used
molds to make bottles. These molds where
usually made of three parts. The bottles are easy to recognize from the rather
rough seams where the parts of the mold got
together.
Example of a molded bottle, the seam is clearly
visible. Picture shown with the friendly permission of Reidar Andersen
Examples of old bottles of pre-industrial
manufacture, shown with the friendly permission of Jo Ann Teague
Bottles
Of Industrial Make
After the method
of pressing had been perfected, bottles where made by pressing a piece of molten
glass into an iron mold with the help of a plunger.
This still left the problem of the bottom and neck, but very soon that was
solved by a combination of the pressing method with the blowing method. Today
bottles are produced fully automatically in large quantities from all kinds of
glass mixtures. The main ingredients are silica and carbonates as well as
different colorings and stabilizers. It is only in
the 20th century that bottles bears letters and
numbers that specify anything from the volume to the producer and the EU sign.
Machine made bottles also often have some indents so that they can be easier
rotated by the machines. Dots or lines on the bottom are readable for scanners
in the factory.
I have seen some 20th century bottles bearing the producers initials or seal in the glass. Whether this is also found in pre-industrial bottles I can not tell, since I have never seen any seals on this type of bottle. However the number of dropouts from the hand blowing method or the semi-automatic blowing method was already high enough, so I imagine that the producers did not want to risk any more bottles with fancy decoration procedures.
The Labeling
Stencils
Most of the
Madeira bottles bear a few white letters. These are seldom painted by
hand, usually they are applied with the help of a
stencil. I have only seen one bottle where they had used a reddish brown as the
stenciling color, but
for a number of reasons this bottle was almost certain a fake.
The labeling of bottles containing vintage Madeiras differs from that of other wines. While even the blends carry the usual paper-made label, there is none on the vintage bottles, except maybe a very small one on the back, indicating the alcohol content and so on. The front side of the bottle carries a few letters, painted directly on the dark glass. This used to be done by hand, but is nowadays made with stencils, or the bottles come pre-printed. The black-and-white contrast gives the vintage Madeiras a unique feature, a little spartanic perhaps, but very appealing. With some old vintages though, the lettering can be so short, that it will be difficult to find out, what the contents of the bottle exactly are. Sometimes a date of year and the initials of the producer will be all there is, maybe a letter for the grape variety too. The letters "B 1936 HMB" as an example will indicate a 1936 Boal vintage produced by H. M. Borges. The color of the letters is white.
Old vintage
bottles with the typical stencils, seen at the Casa do Turista
Paper Labels
Vintages that were
bottled in their country of destination will sometimes carry a paper-made label
instead of being stenciled. Also some modern day
vintages, mostly for the US market, carry a front paper label but the back is
also stencilled. This might give the consumer more information, but in means of
style I think it an incongruity. Also on some bottles the year of the vintage is
supplied on an extra label. This was probably for economic reasons, since the
producer could use the same basic label on all his different vintages and only
had to change the printing for the small vintage label. The gluing of these
labels is remarkably enduring in most cases. If you store your bottles in a very
humid cellar though, the labels might come off. I have tried different types of
spray glue, clear varnish and other things like plastic wrapping. The best thing
still is to store your Madeira wine bottles in a cool and not to humid place,
upright of course.
Front label
and neck
label
with year of vintage
Back Labels
Especially in
the U.S. but also in other countries, vintages and soleras
will often carry a back label. This is where the importer, the shipper, the
alcohol content and other data like the U.S. health warning is given. Also the
backlabel sometimes offers information about the
origin of the wine and the date it was bottled or rebottled.
Back labels in English and in German, backlabel3 shown with the friendly permission of Reidar Andersen
Additional Papers
Sometimes you will find a small paper tag hanging from a cord around the bottle neck or being sealed to the top of the bottle. This tag supplies additional information about the producer like the exact address. Also sometimes you will get your bottle together with a proof of authenticity, usually some very grandiose and colourful piece of paper.
Paper tag and Echtheitszertifikat
Revenue stamp
Revenue stamps are sometimes glued on top of the paper label or on the bottle neck.
Revenue stamp
About Bottle Names
Usually the bottle bears the grape name. Especially in the U. S. however, it was custom to give some special Madeira wine an extra name. This name could have any meaning. It was common to name the wine after the ship that brought it over from Madeira, or that had the wine on board on the round trip before the invention of the estufagem process (see: making of). But the wines would also be named after wifes (or lovers), the birth of the long awaited son, a winning horse at the races or even the color of the cask that the wine was kept in. In some names it is impossible to find out the meaning nowadays. Recently I have had a discussion about a Madeira wine called “hurricane”. After some research the origin of the name could be found. The wine had been shipped to the U.S. aboard the South Carolina based ship “Hurricane” owned by the Blake family in the 19th century. In fact “Hurricane Madeira” was quite famous. William Neyle Habersham, who was probably the Madeira wine authority of his days in the second half of the 1900th century, had some “Hurricane Madeira” in his huge collection.
Before it became common to name the grape variety on the bottle, the wines were also often just named after the district in which the grapes had been grown. Names like this could be “Camara de Lobos” (or “Cama de Lobos”), “Campanario”, “Sao Martinho” and so on.
Especially with the reduced availability of grapes after the Phylloxera, it often happened that the wines were just labelled as “fine” or “genuine”. This usually indicates that the wine is a mixture of grape varieties.
The Cork
The cork can be
astonishingly short. Sometimes the only thing that keeps the wine from running
out is the wax cover. So-called stopper corks were obviously very common. If the
cork is not covered by wax, foil or a wicker cap you should take a good look at
it. Any visible damage of the cork and especially any visible remains of insects
or maggots should keep you from buying the wine. Again: Madeira wine should be
kept in an upright position. The often rather cheap corks are just another good
reason to do so.
Comparison of the
usual short Madeira cork (left) to a Sauternes cork
Stopper corks compared to normal
corks
Remains of cork maggots
The Wicker Cap
Some bottles carry
a small wicker cap over the cork. Under the wicker cap the cork is usually
wrapped in a little piece of paper and also covered with wax. The use of wicker
caps stopped in the 1980ies apart from some cheap 3YO and 5YO still being sold
in wicker.
Wicker Cap
The Wax Cover
The corks are
usually covered with sealing wax. Often the shipper or producers has imposed the
company's seal on the wax cover. Make sure that the wax cover is not broken. If
it is, there is a higher risk of evaporation from the bottle, so if you do
intend to keep the bottle, either have it re-corked or at least close the cracks
with some drops of wax from a non-perfumed candle.
[
Shipper's
Seals
The level of
wine in the bottle
Most of the times you will be able
to see the level of wine inside the bottle.
If the bottle is to dark to get a good look, be it because of the dark glass or
of deposits on the glass try to hold a flashlight behind the bottle. The level
of wine is important because it can give you information about the time span the
wine spent in the bottle and will also allow you to assess the risk of buying a
wine gone bad. The space between the lower end of the cork and the level of wine
is called ullage. The greater the
ullage the more oxygen is inside the bottle. Even
Madeira wine can become dried out and the risk is higher for old bottles with a
great ullage. Often you can not see the lower end of
the cork due to the wax cover so you have to estimate the
ullage. You can also compare the level of wine with the shoulder of the
bottle (most madeira wine
bottles have one, this does not work with burgundy shaped bottles of course).
The following descriptions were first invented by Christie’s Michael Broadbent
and are commonly used today. Into neck: this means the level of wine is still in
the bottle neck, no need to recork the wine, very
low risk. High shoulder or top shoulder: the level of wine has reached the upper
curve of the shoulder, no need to recork the wine,
still no risk, if the bottle was kept under normal conditions you would expect a
bottle age of about 15 to 25 years. Mid shoulder: the level of wine has reached
the middle of the shoulder, you should have your bottle
recorked, there is some risk that the wine has gone bad,
the age of the bottle should be about 20 to 40 years.
Low shoulder: the wine has reached the lower end of the shoulder, the bottle
needs to be recorked, there is a serious risk of
buying a bad wine, estimated bottle age is more then
30 years if the bottle was stored under normal conditions. Below shoulder: the
level of wine is below the shoulder, the bottle needs to be
recorked, there is a high risk that the wine
has gone bad. If you should decide to have a bottle
recorked it is important to bring the level of wine back to normal to
reduce the amount of oxygen inside the bottle. This is done by putting small
sterile glass balls into the bottle. Also you should take a small sample from
the wine to estimate its ability for further storing. Even though Madeira wine
seems virtually indestructible it can dry out after a long time. Should you
decide to do the recorking yourself you will find
all the information needed in the chapter about the
recorking of old bottles.
Other Seals
Some bottles that
were produced especially for the shipper bear on the glass the initials of the
filling company or the year of the foundation or some other sign of the shipper.
Glass
Seal
The JNV Seal
Some wines bear a
small brown seal with the letters JNV and REF in a rectangular frame. This seal
was issued in the beginning of the 1960ies by the Junta
Nacional do Vinho da
Madeira, if they saw an old vintage as authentic. This seal does not offer a
hundred percent certainty, but is reason for some trust and probably a higher
price.
JNV Seal
Sediments and
Crusting
In an old vintage
or solera there are always some sediments and
crusting. They do not affect the taste of the wine, but a bottle can become so
crusted, that you can not see through it. After transport, the sediments are
stirred up, so you should allow them to settle for a day before you open the
bottle. Better then decanting is filtering the wine. Please refer to the chapter
on how to serve Madeira wine for more details. The crusting that covers the
glass from the inside can give you information about how the bottle was stored.
The picture shows a bottle that had been stored in an upright position. Note the
small dark stripe just above the level of the wine. This crusting was formed
when the wine slowly evaporated and left its solids on the glass. Sometimes you
can find two or three of these stripes or rings, indicating fasted evaporation
due to different storing conditions.
Deposits
The Seller
The most important
clue to the authenticity of an old bottle is the seller. A serious seller is
likely to sell a serious bottle - this sounds too obvious to be mentioned, but
it is an important fact that many people seem to forget, when they see an offer
to good to resist. In my experience the producers on the island of Madeira are
absolutely trustworthy when it comes to old bottles. This is also true for the
well established shops like Diogo´s,
Garrafeira, Loja dos
Vinhos or others.
Private island sources are of a higher risk of course, but I would still tend to rate them as rather serious. Bottles can sometimes be rather cheap, but since there is usually no proof or documentation of the old bottles, this is the bonus for the risk-taker. Bottles from private sources are sometimes in a really bad shape, so check them first. Look for a wax cover over the cork, check the bottle for cracks and anything unusual. After all, the bottle still has to make it through the flight back home.
The same is to be said about well-established wine shops with a good reputation. The risk here lies more in the fact that they had to get the bottle from somebody else in the first place. So my advice would be to ask the seller about the origins of the bottle, if he dealt with this source before, what experience he had with the source and so on.
Another reliable source for old bottles are auctions by the well established auction companies. They usually check the reliability of the source themselves and are able to give you an experts opinion about the bottle (Christie’s Michael Broadbent is the best example - read his wine notes, there are some very interesting Madeira wines among them!). Internet auctions are something completely different. The bottles are often auctioned off by private sellers, so there is no guarantees what so ever. You can't even really see the bottle before buying it, often a tiny, hazy, low resolution picture is all you can get. I have seen bottles that where obviously faked being sold on the internet. Also be aware that buying alcohol via the internet is not legal in some countries as is shipping of alcoholic beverages!