Madeira

DOC region named after the island of the same name, one of the most famous and longest-lived dessert wines in the world. The group of islands is part of Portugal, with only the main island of Madeira (capital city Funchal) and Porto Santo being inhabited. The island lies in the Atlantic, around 1.000 kilometres from the Portuguese mainland and 650 kilometres from the coast of Morocco. It was discovered in 1420 by the Portuguese seafarer João Goncalves, he reported finding a heavily wooded island (Madeira translates as „forest island”). The Portuguese set the island alight, it is reported the fires blazed for seven years. This meant that practically the entire vegetation was destroyed, however the combination of wood ash with the volcanic soil already present provided ideal conditions for viticulture. Documents show a flourishing and commercially viable wine industry was in place by the end of the 16th century. The port at Funchal developed rapidly to become a strategically important waystation that was frequented by all shipping headed for Africa, Asia and South America. The ships took on supplies here, including wine. However, the wines were mostly unstable, and spoiled on long sea journeys. For this reason, fortification of the wines, using brandy distilled from sugar cane, became increasingly popular, in order to make the wines more stable,, this became the norm only as of the mid-18th century. There are no records as to precisely when Madeira came to be made in the style it is today, but legend has it that this was already the case in 1478. In this year duke George, brother of the English king Edward IV. (1442-1483), was condemned to death for his acitvity in a conspiracy. He was allowed to choose his method of execution, and it is reported he decided on drowning in a barrel filled with Malmsey-Madeira. However, the term „drowning” may also refer to the fact that he was a heavy drinker all his life. Certainly a later exhumation proves he was not executed by decapitation, the form of capital punishment usually meted out to the aristocracy.

The special method of manufacture, which is also known as maderisation with reference to the typical taste and colour, appears to have come about more or less coincidentally in the 17th century, at a time when large quantities of the wine were exported from Funchal by ship by the Dutch, going to America as well as to all the other European colonies. It was discovered that the wines improved, the more so the longer the journey lasted, and the longer the ship remained in a hot, tropical climate. The high temperatures as well as the swaying motion of the ship contributed to the typical taste of Madeira. It was therefore decided to load numerous ships with wine, these were sent on a journey to the East Indies and back purely for the purpose of producing Madeira wine, thus crossing the equator twice on their travels. This procedure became known as Torna Viagem (round trip, or return voyage) and is documented on the labels of old bottles of Madeira (abbreviated as TVE). A Madeira wine matured in this manner was also known as a „vinho da roda”. With the colonisation of North America in the 17th century, Madeira became popular particularly on the East coast. It enjoyed a considerable reputation and became a highly desirable and expensive product. For instance, the signing of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 was signed and celebrated over a glass of Madeira. Madeira was so popular in the USA in the 19th century that special Madeira Parties were held, and special clubs were founded, including the legendary Madeira Club of Savannah-Ohio, which is still in existence today. The expensive method of manufacture involving a sea journey was practised until the early 20th century, but then given up (individual bottles can still be found in the trade). Producers then set about imitating the special conditions in their cellars. Special wine warehouses were constructed with roofs of corrugated iron that stored the sun’s heat (known as estufagem, Portuguese. Estufa = oven, or known in English as hothouses), and the wine stored in them for a number of months at very high temperatures. This was the beginning of the estufagem method which is generally used for Madeira today.

Both mildew and phylloxera arrived on the island in the 1860’s, effectively destroying viticulture. In the 1870’s, many derelict vineyards were replaced by sugar cane plantations, and only around 500 hectares of vineyards remained. Ten years later, a new start was made using French and American hybrid varieties (particularly Cunningham and JaquetJacquet), which were planted in ungrafted form. These varieties were prohibited for the production of Madeira in 1979, however they are still used for the rustic table wines. The traditional four noble varieties which are used to day to produce the best and most expensive varietal (minimum 85%) wines today are Boal (Bual), Malvasia di Candia (Malmsey), Sercial and Verdelho. The highly regarded and legendary variety Terrantez survives only in minuscule quantities. These five varieties are stated on the label, and also serve to define the different styles of Madeira (see below). However, the Tinta Negra Mole variety, which accounts for around 80% of the total vineyard area of around 2.100 hectares (cultivated by some 4.000 grape growers) dominates, and is used to produce basic, cheaper Madeiras. These account for around 40% of the production by volume. However, this variety may no longer be stated on the label (since 1993), these Madeiras are now known only by their degree of sweetness (seco, meio seco, meio doce and doce – supplemented by the terms pale or dark). The vines are traditionally trained on very low pergolas on terraced sites, which means that pickers have to bend over or even kneel when harvesting the grapes. The grapes are then crushed in a basic process.

Fermentation takes place in 25.000 litre wood containers or in containers of coated cement, in the case of Malvasia and Boal the wine is usually fermented on the skins, whereas for Sercial and Verdelho the must is first separated from the skins. Wines made from Sercial and Verdelho are usually fermented dry. In the case of Malvasia wines, fermentation is stopped at an early stage through fortification, the addition of aguardente (grape spirits), in the case of Boal this is done when fermentation is approximately halfway completed. Estufagem is the special production method that is used almost exclusively for Madeira, and that gives it its unmistakeable character. This is the heating of the wine, which originally took place under natural conditions when the wine was shipped across the equator. For mass production, huge tiled cement tanks holding 20.000 to 50.000 litres of wine are used. A steel heating coil is installed in these tanks, through which flows hot water, thus heating the wine to a minimum temperature of 40 to 50° C. for a period of a minimum of three to six months. The second, much more sophisticated and also gentle procedure involves filling the wine into the typical lodge pipes holding 600 litres each, and then storing these in heated warehouses at slightly lower temperatures than prevail in the large tanks, usually for a period of six to twelve months. However, some producers reject the concept of artificially heating the wine. They store the barrels just below the roofs of the lodges in so-called CanteirosHenriques-Henriques, Miles (famous by virtue of the Old Trinity House Medium Rich brand), Pereira d´Oliveira Vinhos and Silva Vinhos. The Madeira Wine Company is owned by the Madeira-based Blandy company, the port house of Symington has held the majority of shares since 1988. The top brands of this house are Blandy, Cossart Gordon, Duke of Clarence Rich Madeira, Leacock and Miles.