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15. A3EPELID ACEJE . 
or Malvazia is noted for its sweetness and richness; Tinta (a 
red wine) for its Portwine-like astringency, Bual and Yerdelho 
(both dry white wines) each for their peculiar high aromas. 
But Sercial when old and fully ripe — for before 10 or 15 years, 
even in Madeira, it is too austere and crude for drinking — is 
perhaps the very finest of dry cordial wines, combining great 
strength and aroma with the utmost creaminess or softness, 
without the least trace of either sweetness or acidity. The 
Sercial Vine is said to have been brought from Hockheim. 
The fr. though saccharine is so austere that it affects disagreeably 
the throat when eaten in any quantity. — Tinta owes its Port- 
wine colour and astringency chiefly to the infusion of a certain 
portion of the grape-skins in the must during fermentation. 
In the course of 5 or 6 years in Madeira, 15 or 20 in England, 
it loses in great measure its peculiarities, becoming pale, like 
common Madeira. — Although these are the chief wines known 
in commerce, almost every separate vineyard produces a sort 
appreciably different from its next neighbour: a difference 
analogous to that of home-made bread or beer in different 
houses of the same town or village. The strongest wines are 
made on the S. coast; those of the N., with few exceptions, 
being much inferior, are generally distilled into Alcohol or 
Brandy. Malmsey is grown on the warmest sunniest slopes on 
or beneath the cliffs chiefly to the W. of Funchal close to the 
sea, as under the Cabo Girao (Fazenda dos Padres), Paul do 
Mar, Jardim do Mar, &c. But the principal district for the 
other wines of finest quality is the Estreita, a vast mountain 
amphitheatre, formed chiefly by the E. slope of the Cabo Girao, 
beginning about a league to the W. of F unclial, and reaching 
up to a height of from 1500 to 2000 ft. above the sea. The 
wines of Porto da Cruz, Ponta Delgada, and a few other places 
on the N. coast are also very excellent : some of the Tinta 
or red wines of the former district possessing much of the 
Hermitage character on the spot, although too delicate to bear 
transport without injury even across the island. — Madeiran 
grapes in general, though very sweet, have not much flavour 
comparatively with English hothouse grapes, and are too muci- 
laginous or fleshy and leathery or thick-skinned to be very good 
eating. Those of the N. are more juicy, but smaller and with 
still less flavour. — The Vine is said to have been first introduced 
