I'm fresh off a trip to New York as one of my best friends was married last Sunday. Actually, fresh probably isn't the best word, more like exhausted, but I digress. We'll return to the series on analyzing a wine list next time around, but I'm frankly just so happy to be relaxing after such a crazy week and a half. I was also reminded, since my hotel was in the financial district, of one of my favorite taverns in the whole world - Fraunces Tavern. Fraunces Tavern is the restored tavern that was once the site where George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the boys used to hand out for their relaxation. More often, when they were there, they drank one of the world's finest but very much forgotten beverages, Madeira.
Madeira is a fortified wine made in the Madeira Islands of Portugal, which is prized equally for drinking and cooking. According to Wikipedia, Thomas Jefferson used Madeira to toast the signing of the Declaration of independence.
I have spent quite a bit of time studying menus from early America, and it's amazing how much different a wine list looked in the 1800's compared to now. A typical wine progression was often:
Champagne
Sherry
Chablis
Red Burgundy or Bordeaux
Madeira
This would be a set of wines I'd love but admittedly the taking in of both Sherry and Madeira at every meal is pretty eclectic. Either way, a toast to Fraunces Tavern, our Founding Fathers and of course my good friends Giovanni Ruffini and Yelena Sorokina who were wed last Sunday!
(N.B., if you'd like to read more about Madeira and other fortified wines, please visit my good friend Roy Hersh's web site http://fortheloveofport.com)
