Somewhere on a shelf there is a bottle of Madeira older than the telephone, and if you opened it tonight it would very likely be wonderful. Madeira is the wine that refuses to die. It has been cooked, sailed round the equator, left in hot attics and forgotten for a century, and it simply shrugs and gets better. So when The Dalmore wanted somewhere to put three of its oldest single malts for their final chapter, it is not hard to see why it looked to a small Portuguese island in the Atlantic.

The result is The Dalmore Cask Curation Series: The Madeira Wine Cask Edition, made with Blandy's Wine Lodge in Funchal. Three Highland single malts, aged 30, 34 and 45 years, each finished in a cask that once held a different style of Madeira. There are 150 sets in the world. On Monday 9th November, fifteen people will taste all three at 105 Piccadilly, each one beside a glass of the wine that shaped it.

An island that cooks its wine

Most winemakers spend their lives protecting wine from heat and air. On Madeira, they invite both in. The habit goes back to the age of sail, when casks of island wine were loaded onto ships bound for the East Indies. They crossed the equator, sweltered in the hold for months, and came home tasting better than when they left. The wine even earned a name for the trip: vinho da roda, the wine that had made the round voyage.

Rather than keep sending barrels halfway round the world, the island learned to recreate the journey at home. The finest Madeiras are still aged by canteiro, rested in casks in warm lofts for years, sometimes decades, so the island's own heat does the work the tropics once did. What emerges is a wine of extraordinary nerve: rich and toasty, with an acidity that keeps it bright long after other wines would have given up. It was the drink of choice in colonial America, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence was, so the story goes, toasted with a glass of it.

Madeira's great wines take their names from their grapes, and each has its own character. Terrantez, rare enough to be spoken of almost as a legend on the island, is poised, perfumed and bittersweet. Bual is richer, all raisins and burnt caramel. Malvasia, known in its sweetest form as Malmsey, is the most opulent of the lot: the grand dame who arrives last and is forgiven for it.

Why a sherry house went to sea

The Dalmore has spent most of its life in the company of sherry. Founded in 1839 on the shore of the Cromarty Firth, it built its reputation on aged oloroso casks from Jerez and on whisky of real weight: dark chocolate, blood orange, the sort of dram that arrives fully dressed. Fortified wine is in its bones, and Madeira is the natural next step, with even more cask history and a sharper, saltier, more Atlantic edge. (For the full house story, read our profile of The Dalmore.)

The Cask Curation Series is where Dalmore plays that idea out. Each edition takes very old whisky and gives it a final rest in casks from one of the world's great fortified wine houses. This time the partner is Blandy's, a family that has been making Madeira on the island since 1811 and is still in charge today. The whiskies were finished in a 2010 Terrantez pipe, a 2018 Bual pipe and a 2012 Malvasia pipe. A pipe, for the uninitiated, is the traditional Madeira cask: long, narrow, and very good at its job.

Three whiskies, three Madeiras

Taken together, the set reads like a short story in three chapters, each a little darker and richer than the last.

The Dalmore 30 Year Old, Terrantez Madeira Cask Finish is the quiet one. Citrus zest, orange blossom, toasted walnuts and warm spice: an old library with the windows open on a summer evening. At 48.3% it carries more strength than its delicacy lets on. On the night it sits beside a 1986 Cossart Gordon Terrantez, a rare chance to taste one of the island's scarcest grapes at forty years old.

The Dalmore 34 Year Old, Bual Madeira Cask Finish turns up the warmth. Dried figs, Seville orange, Manuka honey and patisserie spice; a whisky that smells like a very good bakery in December. Its partner is a 1976 Blandy Bual, half a century old and almost certainly still full of life.

The Dalmore 45 Year Old, Malvasia Madeira Cask Finish is the eldest and the most indulgent: dates, toffee, chocolate orange and crystallised ginger, wrapped in the kind of softness only forty-five years in oak can buy. It meets a 1981 Blandy Malmsey, which is a little like seating two grandees together at dinner and watching them get on famously.

A note for the purists: the Madeiras are chosen as fine examples of each style. They are not the wines that were held in the finishing casks themselves. The point is to taste grape and whisky side by side, and to find out how much of one has found its way into the other.

If you would like to meet the family before its grandest members, the Dalmore 15 Year Old is the natural introduction: three sherry casks, a generous nature, and the house style in its most approachable form.

An evening for fifteen

On Monday 9th November we open the House to fifteen guests for a three-hour tasting, from 6.30pm to 9.30pm. Your guides are Isabel Álamo-Gómez of The Dalmore and Demetri Walters MW, Blandy's UK Madeira Wine Ambassador: one speaking for the whisky, the other for the wine. Canapés are served throughout, and guests can enquire privately about acquiring one of the 150 sets through House of Decant.

Fifteen seats is not a marketing line. It is the number of people who can sit around one table and hear the stories properly. Tickets are £350, and you can book your place here.

Madeira has spent three centuries proving that time and heat need not be the enemies of a great drink. The Dalmore has spent nearly two proving the same about oak. It seems only right that they should finally share a table.