Madeira: The Fortified Wine That Defies Time

Introduction   

How long would the Madeira linger? Such was the impact and intensity of Barbeito’s 1988 Madeira Sercial that I decided to time the duration of the wine on my palate. The finish lasted several minutes, largely thanks to the wine’s darting, arrow-like acidity. The three-decade-old wine reflected the essence of fine Madeira: refreshing and lush, like the Island’s evergreen UNESCO World Heritage Laurisilva sub-tropical rainforest, which meets hovering clouds rising high above its rocky, volcanic basalt terrain, where waterfalls, cascades, and rivulets flow.

This warming fortified wine, rich in flavors of fig, nuts, caramel, and spice, also reflected the subtropicality of the Portuguese Island’s climate, where bananas – a dominant crop – bird of paradise flowers and sugar cane grow. A key aspect of this wine’s uniqueness is its exceptional longevity. It is said that no other wine outlives Madeira – even when an old bottle has been opened, its drinkability endures. Madeira may have a notorious reputation for its quasi-indestructibility; for most wines, heat, and oxygen are foes, yet Madeira benefited from long, hot sea voyages and oxidation in casks.

Today, however, production on Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Island, located west of Morocco, is under threat from real estate development, a dwindling population of growers, climate change, and declining global wine consumption.

History

Wine was made on Madeira (meaning wood in Portuguese) soon after the Island’s fortuitous discovery by Portuguese sailors in 1419.

Portuguese writer Camões once described Madeira.

“as a gem, and the gem was its trees.”

Those trees, which once included great cedars, were cut down to fuel Madeira’s ‘white gold’ sugar industry, labored by African slaves who built the Island’s levadas – the network of water canals to distribute abundant water. Before Spanish and French brandy became common fortifying agents, Madeira was fortified with sugar cane grown on the Island itself. As colonial Brazil began to dominate global sugar exports, Madeira shifted its focus, expanding vineyard cultivation and establishing wine as the Island’s leading export.

America’s Wine

In its golden age of the 18th century, Madeira would become known as ‘America’s wine,’ writes David Hancock in his insightful book, Oceans of Wine, Madeira and The Emergence of American Trade and Taste. Calling at US ports was convenient and profitable for ships on the westward leg of the Atlantic trades. The Portuguese Island was ideally placed, because of the prevailing winds, for ships heading from Britain to the West Indies and North America, which became prime markets for the wine.

Madeira provided a potable drink to European settlers in the New World who were frustrated in their attempts to develop viticulture in the Americas. Hancock argues that British mercantile policy actively encouraged Madeira’s export trade, while Portuguese authorities discouraged alternative markets, particularly Brazil, where Port wine held favored status.

Indeed, Madeira’s exports flourished thanks to the Anglo-Portuguese accord and treaties, including the Methuen Treaty of 1703. A pivotal moment in Madeira’s rise was the Staple Act of 1663. Following the marriage of Charles II to Portugal’s Catherine of Braganza, the act exempted Madeira from the ban on exporting goods to English colonies unless shipped directly from English ports in English vessels.

As such, British wine merchants in Madeira had a virtual monopoly on trade with the American plantations and the West Indies. That’s how US history with Madeira started. Madeira’s growing popularity led to the mid-18th century to Madeira Parties being held in Boston, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Savannah, and Charleston. A riot that broke out in Boston following the seizure of John Hancock’s Liberty ship over unpaid taxes on a cargo of Madeira became the precursor to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution. Madeira wine was later used to toast the US Declaration of Independence in 1776. Madeira has a niche but quasi-mythical status in the US.

Grapes

Madeira’s natural conditions allow its original grapes to have relatively high antioxidant levels. Usually picked with relatively low potential alcohol levels, grapes are renowned for their pronounced acidity, partly due to volcanic soils, which allow wines to withstand heat and age gracefully. Wines labeled with a grape variety must be made from at least 85% of the grape variety mentioned.

Discover more about Portuguese Grape Varietals

• Tinta Negra: By far the most widely planted variety of red grape, Tinta Negra is arguably the most versatile of the varieties grown on the Island, as it is made into both dry and sweet wines. Although better known for its use in younger, simple wines, since 2015, producers have been able to name the grape on labels, a privilege previously afforded only to the four white ‘noble grapes’ of Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, and Malvasia.
• Sercial: Sercial (known as Esgano Cão or Dog Strangler on the Portuguese mainland due to its high acidity) is grown at high elevations in the clouds and is always produced in a dry style.
• Verdelho: (not it’s not the same as Verdejo!) is one of the easiest grapes to grow and is used to make medium-dry Madeira and increasingly to make super fresh and long, still dry (unfortified) wines, showing citrus and tropical notes, some with fine aging ability such as Barbeito’s 2018 Verdelho tasted in 2025 at the fine Gazebo restaurant [https://www.gazeboexperience.com] in Funchal, Madeira’s capital. (Indeed, still, wine production has been revived too at Porto Santo, Madeira’s sister island, which is home to a 9km beach). Before the twin plagues of oidium and phylloxera, Verdelhos was Madeira’s most planted grape variety.
• Bual: is used to make medium-sweet wines.
• Malvasia: (Malmsey), perhaps the best-known grape, is suited to very sweet wines.
• Terrantez: Producers have been recovering this highly prized grape, known for producing highly aromatic age-worthy wines.

Production Methods

Unlike Port and Muscat, which are fortified with between 73% and 76% alcohol, Madeira is fortified with 96%, resulting in significantly less dilution of the wine compared to other fortified wines. Thus, adequate concentration of the wine is achieved earlier. By the mid-eighteenth century, winemakers were adding brandy to the wine blend to enhance its palatability. The heat treatment, whether artificially created or achieved through extended aging in warehouses, is designed to imitate the effect that voyages to warm and tropical climes, such as those to America and the Indies, had on wine.  

Estufagem method: a unique heat treatment technique to hasten the aging of young, cheaper wines in temperature-controlled tanks for three or four months at about 45ºC.  

Canteiro method: This method is used for aging high-quality wines naturally in wooden casks (usually old French and American barrels) in warm rooms where temperatures and humidity are controlled. Madeira producers often use old casks for decades, allowing oxidative aging to gradually release compounds that enhance the wine’s complex flavor profile. Several Madeira producers monitor and study the catalysts to know the optimal temperatures for aging wines. Unlike Vintage Port, the best Madeira wines are aged in barrels rather than bottles, leaving no heavy sediment.

Rainwater: It is said that rain fell on a stationary shipment of Madeira casks while they were stored in the open at Funchal port before being shipped to Savannah, Georgia, in the US. The casks absorbed the rainwater, which diluted the wine but became popular with US drinkers, hence the name “Rainwater.” This style is now made in a pale or light gold-colored, medium-dry wine with an age indication of ten years or less.

Aging Requirements

All Madeira wines must be aged for a minimum of three years before bottling. Since 2015, bottling dates have been required to be clearly indicated on labels, providing greater transparency for collectors and consumers alike.

Famous Producers and Brands

Barbeito

A producer that once sold bulk wine has become one of the most innovative, renowned for not adding caramel to age its wines or de-acidifying them. Barbeito is known for experimenting with aging conditions and styles and producing still Madeira wine. It was the first to bottle vineyard-specific Tinta Negra (Single Harvest), and the first to truly understand what natural aging in barrels can bring to the soul of his wines, showcased by his Single Cask bottlings, and the first to bottle single-vineyard Sercial, Boal, and Verdelho, according to veteran Portuguese wine importer Raymond Reynolds. In 1991, the Kinoshita family of Japan, one of the key growth markets for Madeira, became joint partners in Barbeito.

www.vinhosbarbeito.com

Blandy’s

Owned by the Madeira Wine Company (which has many brands), it is one of the key historic producers, owning hotels and real estate. One of the best-known producers, renowned for buying the stock at low prices during the crises of the 19th century, Blandy’s has a 16th-century lodge in central Funchal, where it recently unveiled its new 10-year-old Madeira, bottled with clear glass and featuring colorful labels.

blandys.com

Henriques & Henriques: Is the only company that has always owned its vineyards.

henriquesehenriques.pt

Justino’s: the biggest Madeira producer with a storage capacity of around 8.2 million liters of wine and around 2.5 million stocks of Madeira aged in the wood.

www.justinosmadeira.com

Madeira Vintners: One of the newest companies is an all-female company affiliated with Madeira’s wine cooperative.

cafmadeira.pt/madeira-vintners/

Other Notable Producers:

• Cossart Gordon
• Miles
• Leacock
• D’Oliveira
• H. M. Borges

Modern Trends and Innovations

“Nobody knows where Madeira is, but people know the wine,” half-joked Francisco Albuquerque, winemaker at the Madeira Wine Company, when tasting 18th-century Madeira at Christie’s auction house in 2018 – the wine had been discovered behind a secret wine cellar wall at the Liberty Hall Museum in New Jersey.

Since then, the Island and its wine have become more widely known (partly due to an aging population) and perhaps more so than just a wine used for cooking or, at the high end, a cherished wine for collectors who actively seek 19th and 18th-century Madeira. Christie’s auction house, for instance, sold a 300-year-old Terrantez 1715 for $39,000 in 2016.

Tourism has boosted the outlook for Madeira wine, helping to fuel a revival of interest among younger wine drinkers and accounting for approximately 30% of sales for producers. With a population of around 255,000, Madeira welcomed a staggering 2.2 million visitors in 2024.

When visiting producers, it is essential to request tastings of older wines beyond 10 years of age to observe how the wine evolves at various stages of aging. My recent visit to the Island showed how production has shifted beyond fortified wines, increasingly to quality still wine production. Producers benefitting from new transport infrastructure across the Island have enhanced visitor experiences with visits, tasting and tours to the wilder north side of the Island less affected by real estate, to the stunning natural reserve of Terrabona, https://en.terrabonawine.com that makes bright organic still wines, and lunch by the sea at Vinhas do Tico, an up and coming vineyard that is building a winery and a visitor’s center, that will allow it to make and sell its own wine; it currently sells grapes to Blandy’s. Restaurants, too, serve fine dark Madeira rum and even local cider.

Conclusion

The growth of tourism real estate is a double-edged sword; there is far more capacity, a wider variety of offerings, and improved infrastructure on the Island. Yet, Madeira’s vineyard area has declined in recent years by more than 21%, from 492 hectares in 2018 to 387 hectares today. Wine growers running hundreds of tiny plots of vineyard are selling land; there are now just 1,109 growers, down from 1,315 in 2014, according to IVBAM, Madeira’s wine board.

The decline in growers and vineyards has prompted a sharp rise in grape prices. Faced with stagnant sales (€20.8 million in 2024), Madeira producers are calling on the government to establish agricultural reserves to preserve vineyards and ensure that the uniqueness of Madeira wines, its history, and legacy endure. Portuguese and Madeira authorities will need to do more to safeguard the Island’s vinous heritage than simply hoping for toasts to Madeira at next year’s 250th anniversary celebrations of the US Declaration of Independence.

References

Together with the experience of several visits to Portugal in recent years, here are my references:

• Article: https://www.publico.pt
• Article: https://www.wine-searcher.com
• Book: Oceans of Wine, David Hancock
• Book: Madeira, the islands and their wine by Richard Mayson
• Book: Madeira, the mid-Atlantic wine