Midlife wrote:
> A friend of my wife gave us some information about two bottles of Madeira
> that were found among some things that had been stored by her recently
> deceased grandfather. These could be very, very old. If they are what they
> seem to be, the bottles are well over 100 years old. I thought there might
> be some here with an educated guess of what they may be.
>
> I have not seen the bottles myself, so these are notes passed along from the
> owner.
>
> One bottle is labeled: Fanal Fine Maderia Wine sercial ...... vintage
> 1874. Bottled & Exported by Uniao Vinicola Funchal - origin 1860; Island of
> Madeira.
>
> The other reads: Madeira Wine..... Very Old..... Camara de Lobos....
> 1881.... Luiz Gomez Da Conceicao Fqs Lda - Est. 1868.
>
> What little of the wording I was able to Google ties these to just what they
> appear to be.... bottles of wine from Madeira. But could they really be 130
> and 125 years old respectively?? My wife has pictures of the bottles on her
> cell phone and I supposed I could text them to my e-mail address and post
> them somewhere if anyone's interested.

I have the three Great Vintage Wine books by Michael Broadbent, with
the first being published in 1980, but he does not mention either of
the wines that concern you. He has tasted other 1874 Madeira for which
he gave a fair, but not top, rating. He does not mention the year 1881
at all in any of his three books. Broadbent likely has tasted as much
old Madeira as anyone.

I collect old vintage Madeira, and have some from the very early 1800s.
When from a good year and producer, it can easily last this long, and
longer, if given decent storage. Of course if the cork has fallen in
and much of the wine has evaporated, you can not expect much. However,
most of the very old Madeira I have seen has a very heavy sealing wax
capsule and this will prevent leakage in the case of a failing cork,
provided that it is not cracked. Of course many old vintage Madeiras
were kept in glass demijohns for many years and sometimes not bottled
until several decades after the vintage, so the corks often are much
younger than the wine.

Although the cost of old Madeira has increased, it still usually is a
very good relative bargin compared to other wines of like age that will
keep well.