Here is a list of figs that taste like Black Madeira or better, which can be synonymous or not: 1. Violeta 2. Portugal Black Madeira 3. Figo Preto 4. GM 172 5. I-395 6. Malta Purple Red 7. St. Jerome 8. I-258 6&7 is suggested by Alanmercieca on another thread, which gave me the idea to start this thread. If anyone has any ideas of other candidates, please chime in.

A very important factor in the taste is pollination.
With it, many dark figs taste very close to each other and all become Black Madeiras :)

[QUOTE=alanmercieca]You left out Italian 258 in this list.

There are others that taste like Black Madeira yet they are like other known figs too, very complex.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for reminding me. I forgot I-258 when transferring the info over to this thread. It's fixed now.

Reading through the posts, the most consistent opinion across the responses was that Black Madeira is the taste king, if you can get it to grow and fruit. So I use it as a standard of excellence. It does not matter to me if the fig is like other known figs, as long as it can be compared to Black Madeira in taste/ complexity, I'll add to the list.

In this way, I hope the thread can be a resource for the inexperienced like me to see which figs are considered by well-experienced fig growers to be the best tasting common fig and worth the effort/ time/ money, regardless of what's hot right now.

[QUOTE=greenfig]A very important factor in the taste is pollination.
With it, many dark figs taste very close to each other and all become Black Madeiras :)
[/QUOTE]

Great point. However, that is next level stuff. You lucky man; you live in the land of the little helpers.