Madeira – Drinking History Part III: The Production

“Madeira – the most famous wine that nobody knows”

Madeira is the name given to a fortified wine made from a handful of endemic grape varieties, outlined below, which grow on the island of Madeira. From the very earliest days, madeira wine was made for export, and the international fame that the wine has garnered over centuries has spread the name of the island around the world. Today, there are few wine lovers unfamiliar with the name madeira, yet what’s actually in the bottle is often shrouded in mystery or ambiguous folklore. The profusion of styles, ranging from virtually dry to fully sweet, bottled at various staging of ageing, from a single harvest or a blend of different vintages, with or without the name of a grape variety and a host of other “traditional” mentions on the label, are confounding to say the least. This confusion led one producer to tell me that: “madeira is the most famous wine that nobody knows”. I have to agree, but here are the details.

The Grapes

At last count there were about 450 hectares of European vinifera varieties in production, a fraction of the acreage in the glory days of madeira, but again on the rise. Any bottle of madeira labeled with the name of a variety must contain at least 85% of the stated grape. The main varieties are outlined below.

The black skinned tinta negra is by far the most important variety. (It was formerly called tinta negra mole until it was discovered to be a genetically distinct variety from the grape of that same name grown in the Algarve; Madeira’s tinta negra has been identified as the rare molar grape grown north of Lisbon.) That it accounts for 85% of wine production yet covers only 55% of planted land, reveals its main advantage: productivity. It’s also more resistant to mildews and fungi, and is stylistically versatile. Tinta negra is the only variety on the island that can legally be produced in all of madeira’s official sweetness categories. It’s the cheapest at just under 1 euro per kilo (which is still expensive compared to mainland Portugal, where a kilo of equivalent quality grapes can sell for as little as a 25 cents – when you see the vineyards you’ll understand why).

Tinta negra is nonetheless enjoying a bit of a quality renaissance. Shippers such as Barbeitos, Justino’s and Henriques & Henriques believe that, afforded the same care as the so-called “noble varieties”, wine from tinta negra can achieve the highest quality levels. And with the change in legislation of early 2015, the name of the grape is now permitted on the label. I’d expect to start seeing many high-quality, vintage dated tinta negra madeiras on the market in the coming years. In the meantime, any madeira without the name of one of the other grapes listed below on the label is almost certainly predominantly, if not pure, tinta negra. It accounts for nearly all of the 3 and 5 year age-indicated wines.

White verdelho is the next most planted grape covering 12% of surface area. It’s one of the easiest grapes to fully ripen, which accounts for its particularly ripe, tropical fruit flavours, and why it’s also preferred for the small but growing production of dry white table wine. Madeira verdelho is produced exclusively in a medium dry style.

The aromatic, white-skinned malvasia, the island’s oldest variety, was brought from Greece (from the port of Candia in Crete) via Sicily in the 15th century. Today three different clones of malvasia grow on the island, including Candia, São Jorge and Roxo. Together these account for 8% of Madeira’s vineyard surface. 

Sercial and boal (also spelled bual), also white grapes, cover about 4% each. Sercial is grown mainly on the north side at high elevations, up to 700 meters, and is usually the last grape to be harvested, sometimes into mid-October. Even still, it rarely ripens much above 9% potential alcohol, the legal minimum for madeira, and is appreciated for its razor-sharp acidity. It makes the driest style of wine produced on the island.

Boal, on the other hand, is produced only in a medium sweet style. When young, it offers a waft of fragrant pear and apple fruit, but with age it turns particularly smoky and tobacco scented, like a cedar box full of Havana cigars.

Bastardo is the only other red-skinned grape permitted for madeira production, though plantings are anecdotal. And while the white-skinned terrantez is likewise a footnote in production statistics – in 2014 barely 7,000 kilos were harvested out of a total of nearly 4 million - it lives on as one of the most legendary and sought after grapes on the island. Bottles and casks of old terrantez are treasured like religious relics. Indeed, the most expensive bottle of madeira, and the oldest wine ever auctioned by Christie’s, was a terrantez from 1715, which hammered down at $26,950 USD. 

The variety’s pale, thin skins make it highly susceptible to disease. “It’s a disaster”, states Juan Teixera of Justino’s rather matter-of-factly, referring not to terrantez’s quality potential but the challenge of growing it. One grower relates having had a vineyard full of perfect, nearly ripe terrantez, only to return a couple of days to later to harvest and found that every single bunch had rotted. Henriques & Henriques has made the most significant bet on the grape’s future, recently planting enough to yield about 6,000 kilos per year giving them the corner of the market for the future. If you come across a bottle of old terrantez, and they exists, snap it up  - it’s one of the most beguiling of all madeiras, traditionally (and now legally) made in medium dry or medium sweet styles.

One thing is true of all old madeira: after many years in cask the varietal flavour fades into the distance, making it difficult to determine what grape the wine is made from, or even the colour of the grape. You’re left only with the more permanent clues of acidity, and more importantly sweetness, to guess at the variety.

The Winemaking Process & Influence of Volcanic Soils

“Madeira is the most metamorphic wine in the world. You can’t believe that what you started with ends up where it does.” Juan Teixeira, winemaker, Justino’s Madeira Wines

In a sense, madeira shares a lot in common with champagne. For both, a relatively neutral, high acid, low alcohol wine is transformed through lengthy processing into a radically different product, so much so that the starting point becomes virtually indiscernible in the end point.

To make madeira, grapes are harvested between the end of August and early October for the latest sites, at a low potential alcohol of between 9%, the legal minimum, and about 10.5%. Wait for higher ripeness and you run the risk of loosing the entire harvest to regular autumn rains, and in any case, the high acidity of barely ripe grapes is one of the secrets to madeira’s ability to survive the heating process and age magnificently afterwards. 

Madeira wine’s low pH (related to high acidity) can also be attributed in part to the chemistry of the volcanic soils, and their deficiency in acid-buffing potassium: less potassium in grape must translates to lower pH in wine. The soils themselves are also highly acidic (low pH), which “creates a struggle for grapes to fully ripen”, according to Teixeira. Although soil and wine pH are not directly connected, the absorbtion of macro and micro elements by vine roots is heavily influenced by soil pH. In the case of Madeira, the acid soils result in slower sugar accumulation. If Madeira were a chunck of limestone, for example, the wines would be dramatically different: riper, but also less ageworthy, and less able to withstand the heating-oxidizing process, Teixeira hypothesizes. Madeira as we know it would never have existed.

Grapes are crushed and the juice is separated from the skins (or not, depending on the producer and the desired style). Fermentation starts naturally with wild yeast, and continues until the desired amount of residual sugar, and thus style, is reached: the longer the fermentation continues, the more sugar is converted into alcohol and the drier the wine will be. Fortifying with neutral grape spirit at 96% alcohol stops fermentation by killing yeasts and raising the alcohol to between 17% and 22%, the legal range. On average, fermentation lasts 1-2 days for sweet wines, 5-6 for medium sweet, 7-9 for medium dry, 10+ days for the driest styles (see below for sugar levels). Fortyfying also prevents the secondary malolactic fermentation, preserving sharp malic acid, which in turn contributes significantly to the acidic nature of madeira, structure and longevity.

At this stage, wines are separated by quality: the higher quality lots destined for longer ageing (in practice, those made from sercial, verdelho, boal and malvasia, and the finer lots of tinta negra), are racked directly into wood of varying sizes (mostly between 500-700 liters) and placed on the upper floors of warehouses, called canteiros, after the wooden runners on which the barrels rest. They will age here slowly over many years, at least ten or more. The temperature and humidity of the canteiro, as well as barrel size and the placement of the barrel within it (upper or lower level, proximity to windows or doors, etc,) can lead to amazing differences between the same lots of wine of the course of many years.

Lower quality lots and those destined to make 3 and 5 year age-indicated madeiras are put into estufagems for “artificial” ageing (invariably tinta negra). The estufas consist of tanks of stainless steel, wood or concrete with some form of heating either via hot (c. 75ºC) water circulating through jackets around the tank, or through coils placed directly inside. The former is a more gentle process while the latter can cause wine in direct contact with coils to scorch if not monitored and mixed regularly. Three months is the legal minimum, at between 45ºC and 50ºC (maximum 55ºC by law), though some producers extend the process, opting for longer heating at lower temperatures.

Another selection occurs at this point. The lesser lots are kept in tank for three years until bottling, the shortest minimum ageing before a wine labeled madeira can be released. Superior lots are put in barrel, where they will continue their oxidative ageing in warm cellars until ready for blending.

The barrels used for ageing madeira are invariably old and well-used. Some several decades old and some over a century, are cherished like family members. The only new barrels I see on the island were stamped John Jamieson & Sons, the Irish whiskey company that had sent barrels to Henriques & Henriques to be “seasoned” with Madeira wine, to be returned after two years to Ireland to age whiskey (the madeira aged in the new wood is blended off in large lots to dilute the influence of oak).

The Styles: Decoding the Label for Sweetness

All madeira comes in one of the officially regulated sweetness categories listed below. Although the technical measurements for label approval are made in degrees baumé (a measurement of a liquid’s density, closely linked but not directly correlated to sugar content), I’ve provided the approximate sugar levels that are far more helpful for context. Keep in mind that madeira’s high acidity makes even the sweetest wines taste relatively drier than other wines with the same amount of residual sugar.

Grape Names and Sweetness Levels

Many people, including myself, find it confusing that the name of a grape on a label also indicates a sweetness level. The reason for this anomaly is that over the course of centuries, the main grapes became closely associated with distinct styles. Sercial, for example was always made dry, the style to which it is best suited. Malvasia, on the other hand, really shines as a sweet wine. When the official regulations were drawn up, authorities simply codified the traditions of the past. “The styles for each grape make sense”, Humberto Jardim, managing director of Henriques & Henriques, assures me.  “It wouldn’t make sense to make sweet sercial for example. It only grows at high elevation, in the clouds, and reaches barely 9% potential alcohol. It’s best as a drier style wine.” Only tinta negra can be made in all sweetness categories.

Dry or Extra Dry (Seco): 50-60 grams/liter of sugar; extra dry is less than 20 grams. All wines made with sercial fall in this category. 

Medium Dry (Meio Seco): 60-80 grams/liter. All wines made with verdelho and some terrantez fall in this category. 

Medium Sweet or Medium Rich (Meio Doce): 80-100 grams/liter. All wines made with boal and some terrantez fall in this category. 

Sweet or Rich or Full Rich (Doce): 100+ grams/liter. All wines made with malvasia fall in this category.

The Age: What the Numbers Mean

All madeira is at least three years old before it can be released. Thus, any madeira without one of the age designations below or a vintage date, is a three year old wine at least. Beyond that, it can be either a blend of vintages, or from a single harvest. Producers take care of all of the ageing for you, and all madeiras are ready to drink on release. “The investment is on our shoulders”, says Jardim. “By law you must have 2/3rds of what you sell in reserve stocks. I.e. if you have 3 million litres in stock you can only sell 1 million litres in any given year”. Though there is some evolution in the bottle, it is very, very slow and the wine gains little.

Blended Wines

Blended wines come with an age designation of 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 or over 50 years. Like tawny port, the number indicates neither the actual age nor the average of the wine, but rather that the wine “displays the characteristics of a wine that has been aged for the indicated period of time”. If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is. If only I could have been present for the discussions in Brussels when Portugal presented the EU with the legal definitions of the country’s wines for official approval. No doubt it was highly entertaining.

But, it must be added, tasting panelists at the Madeira Wine Institute are dutifully trained to recognize the typical markers for wines at different stages of evolution, so that they can assess whether a sample submitted as a ten-year or fifteen year-old madeira, for example, presents the right characteristics. The complexity and overall quality is expected to rise as the age indication increases. 

Vintage Dated Wines

Wine from a single harvest can be labeled as Colheita, along with the vintage year, after it has aged at least five years in wood. In practice colheitas are aged for much longer. Wines bearing the year of the harvest alone must have spent at least 20 years in wood and aged exclusively in a canteiro (no heating in estufagem). “Vintage” madeira can also include the mention Frasqueira (literally, a place where you store wine) or Garrafeira. Both colheitas and frasqueiras must also mention the year of bottling on the label, an important piece of information that tells you how long it likely spent in wood, and how long it has been in bottle.

Solera is yet another mind-bending category, a sort of hybrid single vintage-blended wine. It’s reserved for wines that are initially from a single harvest and aged at least five years in wood (no estufagem). Then after the five-year period, a maximum of 10% of the volume can be removed within any calendar year and replaced with a younger wine of the same variety. But the 10% draw from the solera can only be done a maximum of ten times over the course of the wine’s lifetime. The bottle bears the mention “Solera”, along with the vintage of the first lot laid down.

The long ageing to which madeira is subjected is one of the wine’s defining characteristics. Both water and alcohol evaporate over time - the more humid the cellar the more alcohol is lost, the drier the more water volume – thus cellar conditions have a dramatic impact on the oldest wines. Up to 40% of the original volume can be lost over twenty years, resulting in extreme concentration of acids, sugars and extract. To give some perspective, old madeira can have a sugar-free dry extract measurement of over 40 grams per liter (the solid bits that would remain if you evaporated the liquid entirely). The most extracted and tannic of red wines rarely have over 30 grams. This extract accounts for the noticeable astringency and bitterness in really old madeira, neither unpleasant characteristics, but it does make the wines more demanding and challenging in the best way.

Other Traditional Mentions

Just in case you’re not confused enough yet, madeira allows for a number of other “traditional mentions” to appear on the label, the legacy of centuries of unregulated wine production and common usage in various languages. Here they are:

Reserva, Velho, Reserve, Old, Vieux: equal to a 5-year age-indicated madeira.

Reserva Velha, Reserva Especial, Muito Velho, Old Reserve, Special Reserve, Very Old: equal to a 10-year age-indicated madeira.

Reserva Extra, Extra Reserve: equal to a 15-year age-indicated madeira.

Fine, Finest, Seleccionado, Selected, Choice: unregulated mentions that appear alongside any of the other official mentions above, as in “Finest Rich Reserve” for a sweet, 5-year age-indicated madeira. Such terms are usually applied to wines deemed superior in their given age/sweetness category.

Rainwater is an historic term for a particular style of wine. According to legend, a shipment of madeira casks headed to Savannah, Georgia in the United States was left on the pebbled beach to be picked up, as there were no docks in Funchal at the time. Heavy rain fell before the casks were collected, and the wood absorbed water, diluting the wine. When the wine finally arrived in the US, the buyer noticed a peculiar taste. After initially complaining, he found that the wine was well received, and requested more.

The shipper, at first perplexed as nothing unusual had been done to the wine before leaving the warehouse, finally managed to figure out what had happened, and dubbed the wine “Rainwater”. Less romantically today, the term Rainwater is reserved for pale or light gold-coloured, medium-dry madeira, with an indication of ten years or less.

Dry Table Wines: PDO Madeirense and IGP Terras Madeirenses

It’s worth noting that the last decade or so has seen the introduction of dry white and red table wines (unfortified) on the island under the “PDO Madeirense” or “IGP Terras Madeirenses” appellations. Whites are made mostly from verdelho, the most planted “noble” white grape, and reds from an unlikely handful of late ripening grapes like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and touriga nacional. The wines, so far at least, are of local interest only.

Shippers

At the leisurely pace of one visit per day, you can experience the madeiras of every producer (also called “shippers”, for historic reasons) on the island in a single week. Today, there are just eight commercial producers of madeira, though in the island’s heyday  there were many more, up to three dozen. Some have disappeared, others have merged or been bought outright. Most producers make wine under several brand names, as well as  for lines of buyers’ own brands, which gives the illusion that there are more producers than exist in reality.

Most producers make the full range, starting from 3 and 5-year wines, mostly from tinta negra in the four sweetness categories, to varietally labeled 10 and 15 year age indicated wines. Colheitas and vintage madeiras depend of course on the shipper’s reserve stocks; Pereira d’Oliveira, for example, has tremendous quantities of old wines from virtually every vintage since the company was founded in 1850. They offer up to 60 different vintage madeiras in any given year, split between the noble varieties.

Since virtually all vineyards are in the hands of growers (only two producers, Henriques & Henriques and the Madeira Wine Company own any acreage of consequence, though nowhere near the amount needed), and most grape growers sell to several producers, everyone is working essentially from the same base material. The notable differences in style between the various shipper and their brands stems thus from the production process and ageing conditions, not the origins of grapes. Despite considerable variation in the dozens of microclimates on the island, Madeira is treated as one single terroir. The availability of old stocks for blending is another important distinction, as it is for non-vintage champagne.

Madeira Wine: The Future

Winemaking on the island is at a generally high level, so the area of greatest potential improvement in the future is in the vineyards. Needless to say, multi-use family garden-vineyards are not ideal. Although most growers take pride in the quality of their grapes, and every kilo has to meet minimum quality standards set out by the Madeira Wine Institute (producers cannot purchase grapes without the approval of on-site inspectors from the Institute who are present as grapes are brought in, and the fear of the shame of having your grapes rejected is an effective motivator), not all growers have the means, or the time, to adequately protect grapes from mildews or botrytis. And growing grapes in the warm, humid climate of Madeira is complicated. 

Yields are higher than ideal in most cases, since grapes are sold by the kilo. And the harvest is also often timed around the availability of family members, rather than when the grapes are ready. “We usually see the most grapes delivered to wineries on a Monday morning”, Rubina Vieira tells me, “as the families get together on weekends to harvest”.

Another concern, at least until very recently, was that average age of growers was over sixty, and there were genuine fears for the supply of grapes and the future of madeira. It’s very difficult to convince the older generation to change viticultural techiques, to, say, green harvest to reduce yields and increase concentration, or to plant any of the more troublesome but high quality grapes. But the economic crisis of the last decade has forced a new generation of younger growers back to the land, unable to find jobs elesewhere. “It will be much easier to work with younger growers, and convince them to plant other interesting grapes like bastardo”, says Teixeira of Justino’s.

Ultimately, a closer connection between growers and producers is the way of the future. It’s logistically tough, considering how fragmented vineyards are, but it’s the best solution to drive quality forward. “We need to go to the land. If we control growing, we can improve quality. In future we need a dedicated viticultural team that could help growers throughout the year,” Teixeira proposes.

Serving Madeira

Like all fortified wines, madeira should be served slightly cooler than room temperature. I find that three and five year old madeiras offer more freshness and drinkability at around 10ºC-14ºC, the drier, the cooler within this range, while older wines, with their marvelous, complex aromatics, are best appreciated a little warmer, up to about 18ºC-20ºC maximum for the sweeter styles. Any warmer than that and the wine shows too much alcohol and sugar.

Wines older than ten years, especially old colheitas and vintage madeiras, should be decanted at least a couple of hours before serving, if not a day or two. Remember that madeira is virtually indestructible and there’s no fear of oxidizing the wine, since it’s already fully oxidized. Once open, a bottle of madeira can keep almost indefinitely, but it’s best to store in a cool place, like a CellArt cellar!

Text and Photos by John Szabo, MS