Henriques & Henriques Tinta Negra 50 years Madeira, Portugal

DUE NOV 2025

After extended maturation in old American oak casks, this extraordinary Madeira, wine with fresh acidity and a lingering finish, and lying made from old tinta negra vines which provide fruit of very rare quality for this variety. Here it shows hugely concentrated apple and citrus flavours, interspersed with candied fruit, spice and tobacco. A complex and powerful somewhere between Sercial and Bual on the sweetness spectrum. Glorious with cheese, nuts and dried fruit, and indestructible, even after opening

Sarah Ahmed The Wine Detective

Tinta Negra 50 years - second edition

This is just the second release of Henrique’s limited edition 50-year-old Tinta Negra (and the first in 750ml format). Despite being Madeira’s most planted grape, seeing Tinta Negra on a label is incredibly rare. But this chameleon variety is undergoing a renaissance, helped in no small part by astonishing older bottlings like this. The wine is bottled from a group of barrels that Henriques & Henriques acquired from a prominent landowner in Camara de Lobos in the mid-1950s. Until 2016, the wines had been used in small amounts to elevate Henrique’s Single Harvest Tinta Negra from 1995, 1997 and 1998. We were lucky enough to taste the first release with Henriques’ main man, Humberto Jardim, a few years ago and can report that this is one explosive wine: intense and complex but remarkably vivid and fresh. It was bottled at 20% alc. and 58.6 g/L residual sugar. We recommend serving with pâté or a great cheeseboard rather than dessert.