Cossart Gordon Madeira Terrantez 1975

This rarest grape variety on Madeira has an awesome ability to age, with 200-year-old examples still full of fruit. That makes this 45-year-old wine almost youthful. It is off dry, with shocking intensity and concentration. Touches of sweeter toffee come through the acidity and old-wood flavors. This is an extraordinary experience. Now it has been bottled, the wine will not age further. So savor now. Roger Voss

Cossart Gordon's 1975 Terrantez (2020 Bottling), which was previously bottled in the late 1990s, is very powerful on the nose; aromas of honey, pressed flowers, furniture polish (antique bureau?) and clove soar from the glass in unison. Side by side, initially I discerned a tad more composure on the 1976 Verdelho. The palate is outstanding: smooth and unerringly harmonious, the acidity is perfect, with a simmering back note of spiciness (stem ginger and lemongrass) that is accentuated on the prolonged finish. The nose begins to cohere with aeration, so that you end up with a gorgeous, quite sophisticated Terrantez. 992 bottles produced.

Bottled in 2020, Cossart Gordon's 1975 Terrantez opens in the glass with complex tertiary aromas of spices, beeswax furniture polish, dried fruits, Cognac, toasted pecans and brown sugar. Medium to full-bodied, deep and nicely layered, it's dry and elegantly austere, its structural bones poking through its mid-palate flesh.