MADEIRA

Madeira

Madeira is a fortified Portuguese wine made in the Madeira Islands. Madeira is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own as an aperitif, to sweet wines more usually consumed with dessert.
Cheaper versions are often flavoured with salt and pepper for use in cooking.
The islands of Madeira have a long winemaking history dating back to the Age of Exploration when Madeira was a standard port of call for ships heading to the New World or East Indies. To prevent the wine from spoiling, neutral grape spirits were added. On the long sea voyages, the wines would be exposed to excessive heat and movement which transformed the flavour of the wine as the wine producers of Madeira found out when an unsold shipment of wine returned to the islands after a round trip.
Today, Madeira is noted for its unique winemaking process which involves heating the wine up to temperatures as high as 60 °C (140 °F) for an extended period of time and deliberately exposing the wine to some levels of oxidation. Because of this unique process, Madeira is a very robust wine that can be quite long lived even after being opened.[
In conformance with these EU regulations most countries limit the use of the term Madeira or Madère to only those wines that come from the Madeira Islands.

Viticulture:

The island of Madeira has an oceanic climate with some tropical influences. With high rainfall and average mean temperature of 66 °F (19 °C), the threats of fungal grape diseases and botrytis rot are constant viticultural hazards. To combat these threats, Madeira vineyards are often planted low trellises, known as latada, that raise the canopy of the vine off the ground similar to a style used in the Vinho Verde region of Portugal. The terrain of the mountainous volcanic island is difficult to cultivate with vineyards planted on man-made terraces of red and basaltic bedrock. These terraces, known as poios, are very similar to the terraces of the Douro that make Port wine production possible. The use of mechanical harvesting and vineyard equipment is near impossible, making wine grape growing a costly endeavor on the island.[3] Many vineyards have in the past been ripped up for commercial tourist developments or replanted with such products as bananas for commercial concerns. Some replanting is taking place on the island; however, the tourist trade is generally seen as a more lucrative business than wine-making.

Grape varieties

The four major types of Madeira are named according to the grape variety used. Ranging from the sweetest to the driest style, they are: Malvasia (also known as Malmsey or Malvazia), Bual (or Boal), Verdelho, and Sercial. Occasionally one sees Terrantez, Bastardo and Moscatel varieties, although these are now increasingly rare on the island because of oidium and phylloxera. After the phylloxera epidemic, many wines were “mislabeled” as containing one of these noble grape varieties, which were reinterpreted as “wine styles” rather than true varietal names. Since the epidemic, Tinta Negra Mole and Complexa are the workhorse varieties on the island, and are found in various concentrations in many blends and vintage wines. Of these, Bastardo and Tinta Negra Mole are red grape varieties, the rest are all white. Regulations enacted recently by the European Union have applied the rule that 85% of the grapes in the wine must be of the variety on the label. Modern Madeiras which do not carry a varietal label are generally made from Tinta Negra Mole.

Winemaking:

The initial winemaking steps of Madeira start out like most other wines with the grapes being harvested, crushed, pressed and then fermented in either stainless steel or oak casks. The grape varieties destined for sweeter wines, Boal and Malvasia also referred to as Malmsay, are often fermented on their skins to leach more phenols from the grapes to balance the sweetness of the wine. The more dry wines made from Sercial, Verdelho and Tinta Negra Mole are separated from their skins prior to fermentation. Depending on the level of sweetness desired, fermentation of the wine is halted at some point by the addition of neutral grape spirits. Producers of cheaper Madeira will usually ferment the wine completely dry, regardless of grape variety, and then fortify the wine so as not to lose any alcohol to evaporation during the estufagem aging. The wines are then artificially sweetened and coloured..

Sercial is nearly fermented completely dry, with very little residual sugar (0.5 to 1.5° on the Baumé scale). This style of wine is characterised with high-toned colours, almond flavours and high acidity.

Verdelho has its fermentation halted a little earlier than Sercial, when its sugars are between 1.5 and 2.5° Baumé. This style of wine is characterized by smokey notes and high acidity.

Bual/Boal has its fermentation halted when its sugars are between 2.5 to 3.5° Baumé. This style of wine is characterized by its dark colour, medium-rich texture, and raisin flavours.

Malvasia/Malmsey has its fermentation halted when its sugars are between 3.5 and 6.5° Baumé. This style of wine is characterised by its dark colour, rich texture, and coffee-caramel flavours. Like other Madeiras made from the noble grape varieties, the Malvasia grape used in Malmsey production has naturally high levels of acidity in the wine, which balances with the high sugar levels so the wines do not taste cloyingly sweet.

Estufagem” process

What makes Madeira wine production unique is the estufagem aging process meant to duplicate the effect of a long sea voyage of the aging barrels through tropical climates. Three main methods are used to heat age the wine, used according to the quality and cost of the finished wine:
• Cuba de Calor: The most common, used for low cost Madeira, is bulk aging in low stainless steel or concrete tanks surrounded by either heat coils or piping that allow hot water to circulate around the container. The wine is heated to temperatures as high as 130 °F (55 °C) for a minimum of 90 days as regulated by the Madeira Wine Institute.
• Armazém de Calor: Only used by the Madeira Wine Institute, this method involves storing the wine in large wooden casks in a specially designed rooms outfitted with steam-producing tanks or pipes that heat the room, creating a type of sauna. This process more gently exposes the wine to heat, and can last from six months to over a year.
• Canteiro: Used for the highest quality Madeiras, these wines are aged without the use of any artificial heat, being stored by the winery in warm rooms left to age by the heat of the sun. In cases such as vintage Madeira, this heating process can last from 20 years to 100 years.
Much of the characteristic flavour of Madeira is due to this practice, which hastens the mellowing of the wine and also tends to check secondary fermentation in as much as it is, in effect, a mild kind of pasteurization. Furthermore, the wine is deliberately exposed to air, causing it to oxidize. The resulting wine has a colour similar to a tawny port. Colourings such as caramel coloring have been used in the past to give some consistency, although this practice is decreasing. Wine tasters sometimes describe a wine which has been exposed to excessive heat during its storage as being cooked or maderized.

Styles of Madeira:

Since 1993, Madeira produced from Tinta Negra Mole grapes is legally restricted to use generic terms on the label to indicate the level of sweetness as seco (dry), meio seco (medium dry), meio doce (medium sweet) and doce (sweet).
A wine labeled as Finest, means it has been aged for at least three years. This style is usually reserved for cooking.

Wines made from at least 85% of the noble varieties of Sercial, Verdelho, Bual and Malmsey are usually labeled based on the amount of time they were aged.
Wines with Solera listed were made in a style similar to sherry with fractional blending of wines from different vintages in a solera system.
Reserve (five years) – This is the minimum amount of aging a wine labeled with one of the noble varieties is permitted to have.
Special Reserve (10 years) – At this point, the wines are often aged naturally without any artificial heat source.
Extra Reserve (over 15 years) – This style is rare to produce, with many producers extending the aging to 20 years for a vintage or producing a colheita. It is richer in style than a Special Reserve Madeira.
Colheita or Harvest – This style includes wines from a single vintage, but aged for a shorter period than true Vintage Madeira. The wine can be labeled with a vintage date, but includes the word colheita on it.
Vintage or Frasquiera – This style must be aged at least 20 years.

Rainwater

A style called “Rainwater” is rarely produced today, and when it is, is usually shipped only to the United States. This style of wine is mild and similar to Verdelho, but can be expected to be made from Tinta Negra Mole, and is primarily used as an aperitif. Accounts conflict as to how this style was developed. The most common is the name derives from the vineyards on the steep hillsides, where irrigation was difficult, and the vines were dependent on the local rain water for survival. Another theory involves a shipment destined for the American colonies that was accidentally diluted by rainwater while it sat on the docks in Savannah, Georgia. Rather than dump the wines, the merchants tried to pass it off as a “new style” of Madeira and were surprised at its popularity among the Americans.

Characteristics

Exposure to extreme temperature and oxygen accounts for its stability; an opened bottle of Madeira will survive unharmed for a considerable time, up to a year. Properly sealed in bottles, it is one of the longest-lasting wines; Madeiras have been known to survive over 150 years in excellent condition. It is not uncommon to see Madeiras pushing the century mark for sale at stores that specialize in rare wine. Vintages dating back to 1780 are known to exist. The oldest bottle that has come onto the market is a 1715 Terrantez.
Before the advent of artificial refrigeration, Madeira wine was particularly prized in areas where it was impractical to construct wine cellars (such as those in parts of the southern United States) because, unlike many other fine wines, it could survive being stored over hot summers without significant damage.
Lower-quality Madeira wines may be flavored with salt and pepper to prevent their sale as Madeira wine. Instead, they are exported—mainly to France—for cooking purposes. This wine is most commonly used in sauce madère (Madeira sauce).

Madeira producers and shippers:

Adelaide, Anderson, Aspinwall, Averys, Barbeito, Blandy’s Madeiras Lda. (MWC), Broadbent, Cossart Gordon Lda, Funchal Wine Co, Gibbs & Co, Gonçalves, J. H. (Borges)