For The Love Of Port

I know the answer for Port, but for some reason I thought that the answer was different for Madeira. I've recently been led to believe that my understanding is wrong.

If a Madeira is labeled a 30 year old, what does that mean?

For a bottle of Port, that only means that the contents were approved by the IVDP to meet the organoleptic qualities of a Port that is 30 years old. It does not actually mean anything at all about the actual age of the contents. If you could come up with a 10 year old tawny that tasted like a 30, you could get it approved and sell it as a 30. That's not likely, but it's at least theoretically true.

I thought that the contents of a bottle of Madeira labeled as a 30 year old had to be in fact at least 30 years old. Like Scotch - everything in the bottle must be at least 30 years old. You can include some 50 year old if you want to, but the age on the label can only be as high as the youngest wine that's included.

What's the actual regulation? Does anyone know?

I believe it's the same. The IVBAM is the regulatory agency. I've been to their tasting room. Very sterile. They rotate out the tasting panel and generally include at least one producer. Sounds like a great gig, but to taste those 50 year olds, you have to also go through a lot of 3 year olds. I've heard of one incident where a wine was rejected, but approved for an older category. Don't know if the panel was different though.

I distinctly remember Chris Blandy explaining in one of his seminars that approvals are solely based on the tasting panel assessment.

Thanks guys!