I love Madeira; all of those weird, rancid and off flavours that combine to make a lovely, complete booze experience are a joy. This is a particularly tits bottle.

Madeira Boal Reserva 1968, d'Oliveiras
Quite dark orange, with the weird green rim you only seem to find on Madeira. The nose bursts with brazil and hazelnut tones, with a wonderful toffee apple fruit. This is throbbing with life and it clearly signed an agreement saying it would strive only to provide a lot of pleasure. If I have been unclear allow me to re-iterate: this smells freaking ace. The palate also bursts with life, it has good baked fruit and truly marvellous (and, if I may go on about this, slightly painful) acidity. As with all good bottles of Madeira, how this tastes may not thrill the unenlightened. But I am well aware that both my readers of this site are not only enlightened but in fact serene. This will tickle your imagination, thrill your nose and tantalise your tongue. Madeira is a sadly neglected drink these days, and has been so for too long. When I used to invite good looking students to my room to mark their essays, issue them with papers and generally be a supportive kind of tutor they always seemed scandalised when I offered them a glass of Madeira. Bad thing when social conditioning makes one reject good things simply because Dame Fashion says you must avoid without giving any convincing reason. Surely it is better to be right than fashionable? Madeira was one of the first wines I purchased with my own cash, but even at that tender age I knew about the objective nature of reality and how I was in touch with it. This is excellent.