[FOR THE CELLAR] WINES IN TIME EP. 5: ON A BOAT

bottles for saving, sharing, and tasting on your own time

Available for shipping, delivery or pickup in early February.

Travel through time with the Children's Atlas of Wine, and taste how wine's deep histories are shaping its future!

What happens when a wine leaves where it's grown to become a luxury good?

For Madeira, beloved of the American Founding Fathers, it meant intentional sweetness, fortification with brandy, cooking in the holds of slave ships.

Madeira is a unique wine from a unique place: a volcanic island off the coast of Africa, repository of nearly-extinct varieties. But it's also just the most famous survivor of what was done to all wines that ended up on boats.

Until the middle of the 19th century, Bordeaux was fortified to cross the Channel; sweet wines were king; it was impossible to taste the sorts of fragile homemade wines we celebrate now outside of the back yard of the farmer who grew them.

Here are three bottles that carry this past and reimagine it for the future, to sip on over time or age indefinitely—built to travel, they're practically immortal.

Each class kit serves 1-5 drinkers and includes three bottles of wine, hand-painted map prints, custom illustrations and pairing suggestions, a tasting guide, a seasonal playlist, and digital supplementary materials from James Sligh of the CHILDREN'S ATLAS OF WINE. Get the second four episodes of WINES IN TIME at a multipack case discount here.