The
Making Of Madeira-Wine
The Making Of Madeira-Wine
Old Casks
The grapes are
grown on steep terraces all over the island. At the north coast and in the Camara do Lobos area there are some larger vineyards, but
usually they are very small and sometimes rather remote. At Camara
do Lobos Henriques & Henriques
built a relatively large vineyard, the size of ten hectares with the help of
bulldozers. This vineyard is accessible for modern machines. It is one of only
two such areas in the moment, but the Madeira Wine Company is also planning for
a big vineyard. About 4500 growers cultivate grapes on the island, most of them
in the Câmara de Lobos area. Altogether some 2000
hectares are suitable for wine-growing, but only 600 are planted with vines,
since the cultivation of bananas is much more rewarding. Most wine growers also
grow vegetables for themselves or for the local market between the vines. This
slows the growing of the grapes which become more aromatic and more concentrated.
The grapes are mostly grown in the pergola-style, low in height and covered
with a roof of their own leaves. This protects the grapes from the strong winds
and the sometimes dramatic changes in temperature. The distance between the
vines is two to three yards. The plants are usually irrigated with water from
the levadas. The different varieties are grown in
different heights above sea level. Boal and Malvasia are best grown in lower altitudes, whereas Verdelho and Sercial like the
higher altitudes. The versatile and robust Tinta Negra Mole imitates the other varieties depending on the
altitude it is grown at and depending on the processing.
The harvest is
mostly done manually. Malvasia is the first, the dry varieties Verdelho
and Sercial go last. This sounds like a paradox, but
since the aromas are not backed up by sweetness, these grapes simply have to
get as much sun as possible for the development of their aromas. The grapes are
then carried up to the next street, sometimes hundreds of yards, and are
collected on small trucks. Then they go to the winepress, where the grapes are
crushed and pressed. Until into the late 1970’s this used to be done with feet
and wooden presses. One lagar is still featured in
the museum of the Madeira Wine Company. The fermented juice used to then be
carried by the boracheiros in goatskins containing up
to 70 liters or 15 gallons to the winecellar
downhill. Such a load was of course tough to carry and made the men thirsty. And so there are many stories of boracheiros
reaching the cellar with empty skins but heavily drunk. Today the
processing and cellaring is done at the location of the press. The fermenting
of the must is stopped with brandy; the time of adding the brandy depending on
the grape variety. The must from the Malvasia grape
gets the brandy right at the beginning of fermentation, Boal
and Verdelho around the fourth day, and Sercial about a month after the fermentation started. In
this way the resulting wine will be sweet or dry, depending on when the
fermentation of the grape's sugar was stopped, but all the wines will have high
alcohol content. The adding of brandy is known as fortification.
Old Casks
The fortified
young wine is then transferred to the estufa. In the most simple version, this is a large container, usually
stainless steel, with a pipe system in it. The pipes circulate hot water in
them and so heat the wine over several days to a temperature of about 50
degrees Celsius or 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This final temperature is then kept
for some weeks or months. Since the heating in this way is rather fast, some of
the wine's sugar will turn to caramel. The wine will then feature the typical
burnt taste of the lower qualities of
When the heating
is finished, the wine in the estufa is allowed to
cool and will then be transferred into wooden casks to be stored for years to
come. Depending on the intended use, this can be three to fifteen years. There
is always some air in the casks and so the wine completely oxidizes, i.e. the
organic contents of the wine react with the air's oxygen and thereby change the
color, the smell and the taste of the wine. Finally
the wine goes into the blend. The cellarmaster tries
to keep the characteristic taste of the shippers wine by blending different
wines together. The normal everyday
Old Casks
The very good
wines are treated in a different way, they can become Vintage Madeiras. This means that they will stay in cask for a
minimum of twenty years, most of them much longer, up to hundred years and
more. In this time the sun's heat leads to further concentration and oxidation.
Before over-concentration makes the wine undrinkable it will be transferred to
glass demi-johns containing 22 liters
or 5 gallons of wine. Those demi-johns are then
sealed airtight which stops further development of the wine and enables
long-time storing. In earlier times, this was the way for the