What is Madeira?

Madeira comes exclusively from the Portuguese island of the same name in the Atlantic Ocean, a volcanic island of 738 square kilometres between the thirtieth and thirty-third parallel. According to the island’s own wine institute, viticulture there goes back almost six centuries.

The acreage is small and fragmented. Of about 1,700 hectares of vineyard, roughly 500 hectares are intended for the protected designation of origin Madeira. That land is divided among 1,755 growers with an average of 0.3 hectares per holding and more than 5,000 separate plots. In the early nineteenth century there were still around 5,000 hectares of vineyard; in 1860 it was 2,500 hectares. Today there are eight Madeira houses that bottle the wine.

Madeira comes about when fermentation is stopped with wine spirit, after which the wine is heated. That heating is what distinguishes madeira from other fortified wines.

There are two ways. With estufagem the wine goes into heated tanks, with a maximum temperature of 50 degrees and a minimum duration of three months. Such a wine may not be bottled before 31 October of the second year after the harvest. With canteiro the wine matures on natural warmth in wooden casks, at least two years in wood, and may only be bottled after at least three years, counted from 1 January after the harvest.

The total alcohol content must be at least 17.5 percent, the actual content lies between 17 and 22 percent. Only with a permit is 15.5 percent possible.

Tinta Negra yields by far the most madeira: about 88 percent of the bottlings come from this dark grape, which was counted among the noble varieties in 2015.

Alongside these are the classic white varieties, each linked to a degree of sweetness. Sercial belongs to the dry style with roughly 30 to 50 grams of residual sugar per litre, Verdelho to medium dry with 55 to 70 grams, Boal to medium sweet with 75 to 95 grams and Malvasia to sweet with more than 100 grams. Terrantez and Bastardo occur in small quantities. By law, sweetness is set in degrees Baumé: seco below 1.5 degrees, meio seco between 1 and 2.5 degrees, meio doce between 2.5 and 3.5 degrees and doce above 3.5 degrees.

Frasqueira stands for at least twenty years of uninterrupted maturation in wood, from a single vintage, with a recommended grape variety and according to the canteiro method. Garrafeira is the same designation.

Colheita means at least five years uninterrupted in wood, also with the harvest year on the label. In addition there are the age statements 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years, plus the mention over 50 years. Frasqueira is laid down in the European registers as a protected traditional term, with the Portuguese Portaria number 125/98 as its basis.

Madeira falls legally under the category of liqueur wine. According to Annex VII of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013, a liqueur wine has an actual alcoholic strength of at least 15 and at most 22 percent, and a total alcoholic strength of at least 17.5 percent.

Madeira, at 17 to 22 percent, sits in the upper half of that band. For comparison: ordinary wine must, according to the same annex, have at least 8.5 percent alcohol in wine-growing zones A and B, and 9 percent in the other zones. The difference lies in the addition of wine alcohol during or after fermentation, which halts fermentation and leaves part of the sugar behind.

The Instituto do Vinho, do Bordado e do Artesanato da Madeira, IVBAM for short, has since 2006 been the public institute that sets, coordinates and implements policy on madeira wine.

Besides wine, IVBAM also deals with the embroidery, the handicrafts and the spirits of the island, such as agricultural rum. The substantive rules for madeira are set out in the official journal of the autonomous region of Madeira of 13 February 2015. They lay down the alcohol limits, the heating methods, the maturation periods and the sweetness classes.