(WP) - America once had a love affair with Madeira. Our Founding Fathers hoisted glasses of this fortified wine to toast the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and it was a favorite tipple at dinner tables throughout the young nation.

“About 75 percent of all wine consumed in the colonies in the 18th century was Madeira,” says Chris Blandy, 36, seventh-generation chief executive of the wine company that carries his family’s name. “Today, Madeira unfortunately has the image of cooking wine.”

There’s nothing wrong with filet mignon in a Madeira sauce, of course. But over the past decade or so, Madeira sales in the United States have grown steadily, up to about 12,000 cases a year, Blandy says. That’s still a niche wine, but as U.S. consumers explore wines from around the world, they have discovered Madeira again.

Blandy was in back in Washington recently to introduce new releases of vintage Blandy’s dating to the 1960s. He lived here from 2003 to 2007, working at the Willard InterContinental hotel before joining the family firm that was established in 1811.

Madeira is in some respects similar to port; in others, more like sherry. It hails from the Portuguese island of Madeira, about 500 miles off the coast of North Africa. The island’s location on trade routes to the New World fueled its early popularity here. Large casks of it were used as ballast on trade ships, and the wines actually tasted better after their ocean voyage.