TN: NV Cossart Gordon & Co. Madeira No. 26 Light Madeira

[John Danza]

• NV Cossart Gordon & Co. Madeira No. 26 Light Madeira - Portugal, Madeira (11/21/2015)
  It's an old bottle, judging from the label saying the contents are 25/32 quart, and the alcohol of 16%. I tried to find out what was in the bottle from the producer, but they clearly don't know. They didn't recognize the name, so they asked me to send them photos of the bottle. They finally told me that it was a "5-year sweet wine" made from the Tinta Negra Mole grape.
  
  This is definitely not a 5-year sweet wine. The wine is dark brown and totally dry, with great Madeira acidity. I'm thinking this is mostly Sercial. The wine was excellent with shrimp bisque. I would definitely buy more if it showed up. (92 pts.)
  

Posted from CellarTracker

[Gary Banker]

John,

I found an article from the LA Times that mentions # 26 madeira among others: "...No. 26, dark gold, mellow and full-bodied ($9.49)..." and says that Charles LeFranc was the importer for Cossart Gordon wines at the time.

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-03-23/ ... deira-wine

In Madeira The Island Vineyard on page 96, Noel Cossart mentions Crown Bual no. 93 and Crown Sercial no. 104 and says that in 1960 they were still available. The description of the label is similar to your bottle. It appears that this range of madeira was produced after World War I until at least the 1980s.

[John Danza]

John,

I found an article from the LA Times that mentions # 26 madeira among others: "...No. 26, dark gold, mellow and full-bodied ($9.49)..." and says that Charles LeFranc was the importer for Cossart Gordon wines at the time.

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-03-23/ ... deira-wine

In Madeira The Island Vineyard on page 96, Noel Cossart mentions Crown Bual no. 93 and Crown Sercial no. 104 and says that in 1960 they were still available. The description of the label is similar to your bottle. It appears that this range of madeira was produced after World War I until at least the 1980s.

Thanks for those references Gary. I've got the Cossart book, but never thought to check it for reference to this wine. Duh!

I don't think that the wine I had were part of the "Crown" series as there was no reference to that on the label, but as you said, the description of the image on the label is the same in the Cossart book.

Later in that paragraph, Cossart mentions an article about old Madeira that Roy Brady wrote in the Journal of the Wine & Food Society. As it happens, I'm a retired Director of that organization and also the historian for the Board of Directors. I have a complete run of the Society's journal from the beginning in 1934 through 1959, and then most of the issues into the mid-1960s. I found the article by Roy Brandy and have scanned it for everyone to read. I started a separate thread on FTLOP for that article. You can find that here.