Madeira – Drinking History Part II: The Past

Wine was produced and exported from Madeira from at least the middle of the 15th century. Prince Henry the Navigator ordered that the malvasia from Candia, the island’s first grape, be brought from the Cretan port of the same name via Sicily for cultivation. When Madeiran sugar was replaced by cheaper exports from Brazil in the following century, vineyards largely replaced sugarcane plantations and wine production grew. 

Fortune then smiled on Madeira when Cromwell in 1651, and then Charles II in 1663, passed the Navigations Acts in England that restricted all imports to the newly established American colonies, except those shipped from English ports. Madeira was one of the very few exceptions (possibly because Charles had just married Catherine of Braganza in 1660), and English merchants flocked to the island to set up wine export businesses to supply the colonies. It was the beginning of a long English, and American, love affair with madeira. Anglo-Portuguese trade relations were further strengthened with the signing of the Treaty of Methuen, which established, among other agreements, that Portuguese wines be given a 33% customs tax break in England, while English textiles could enter Portugal tax free.

Wine exports grew substantially between the 16th and 18th centuries, buoyed by these regulatory advantages and the island’s strategic location along the trade routes between Europe, the Americas and the East Indies. Wine was precious cargo. It commanded  huge profits as America’s first true luxury wine. It provided palliative and health benefits for sailors on long journeys and was useful as ballast. That George Washington elected to toast the signing of the American Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776 with malmsey madeira was testament to the wine’s stature in the newly formed United States. 

And there’s more than a tinge of irony to the story as, calculated or not, the wine in Washington’s glass was very likely produced and shipped by an English merchant. In turn, the popularity of madeira in England grew considerably after English patriots left the United States during the war of independence, bringing home with them a taste for the marvelous wines of the island gained in America. Centuries would pass before the Yankees would teach the Brits about fine wine again.

Two critical modifications to madeira were made during the 18th century, which would result in the wine we know today. First, sometime around the middle of the century, it was discovered that wine was far more apt to survive long sea voyages if blended with high-proof alcohol, in this case the sugarcane spirit produced then, as now, on the island. From this point on madeira would become a fortified wine. Shortly thereafter, it was also noticed that madeira improved considerably during these long sea voyages. Often used as ballast to replace the weight of a load of slaves, the wine, rolling and sloshing in the tropical heat and humidity of the holds of sailing ships navigating across the equator and back would transform in miraculous fashion. The initially harsh, sweet-tart wine grew in complexity and concentration, gaining years of maturity in a matter of a couple of months.

Thus was born the “vinho da roda”, or “round trip wine”, which soon became the most prestigious and sought after of all madeiras. Merchants on the island took to shipping barrels of madeira to India or the Americas and back for the sole purpose of enhancing wine quality and raising its value. In an early example of wine marketing genius, barrels were christened with the romantic and exotic-sounding names of the ships on which they sailed, such as The Three Deacons, The Southern Cross or The Comet, adding even more value.

But the practice was both very expensive and evidently limited in potential scope, and demand quickly outstripped supply. Shippers sought cheaper and scalable alternatives to replicate the conditions on board sailing ships, such as sending barrels on the short trip to the African coast where they were unloaded and left on the beach under the Saharan sun for a hot and fast maturation of a few weeks. Others tried heating vats of wines with wood fires, which, for obvious reasons, presented challenges.

Finally in 1794 Fernandez Pantaleão hit upon the right blend of controlled, gentle but rapid heating in a system he devised called the “estufagem”, from “stufa”, meaning stove or stewing. Pantaleão’s estufagem consisted of a set of coils within a large wooden ageing vat, through which hot water was run to indirectly heat the wine without scorching it. Although some producers at the time thought that the end of true madeira was nigh, it was eventually accepted and adopted, and it’s still the system in use today even if the technical specs have improved.

Following these two glorious centuries for madeira, the 19th and 20th centuries were contrarily filled with misfortunes and challenges. The arrival of the twin vine plagues of oidium (powdery mildew) and phylloxera, brought to Madeira via England in the mid and late 19th century, all but destroyed the island’s vineyards. In 1850, a healthy fifty million hectoliters of grape must were produced. By 1854, that number, according to online sources, had dropped to less than a thousand hectoliters. Even allowing for some exaggeration or miscalculation, the reduction is staggering. 

Meanwhile, foreign markets were also drying up. The instability brought about by the American Civil War from 1861-1865 disrupted Madeira’s main export market. By 1875, the once flourishing trade with America had tumbled to a scant 16 pipes (barrels of c. 600l liters). And on the other side of the world, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 lessened Madeira’s strategic importance. Ships travelling between Europe and the Far East no longer used the south Atlantic route around the Cape and traffic through the port of Funchal dropped dramatically. In this dark period, English merchants decamped in droves and the wine industry, along with the entire economy of the island, was in tatters.

Solutions were eventually found, along with new markets. Germany and Russia became significant customers, with the sweetest styles highly prized by the Czars. Oidium and phylloxera-resistant, if qualitatively dubious, native American vine species were imported, a legacy that still dogs the island today. Madeira still has some 600 hectares of non-vinifera varieties planted, used to make pungent wine for local consumption called “vinho Americano” or simply “vinho seco” (“dry wine”). (To taste this you’ll have to travel to the small villages outside of Funchal, though having experienced it, I can share that the effort is questionable.) Tinta negra, a hardy vinifera variety, was also introduced, largely replacing the island’s original but more sensitive grapes. Tinta negra still represents over half of vineyard acreage today (see below for more details). 

But Madeira was hardly out of the woods. Various 20th century events, including two world wars, the Russian revolution, and the iron-fisted dictatorship of Salazar that lasted in Portugal until 1974, took their toll. Although quality wine production continued in a limited fashion throughout the island’s long history, as attested to by large stocks of astonishingly good wine dating back a hundred and fifty years and more, by the second half of the 20th century, the name madeira conjured up the image of a bottle stuffed at the back of the kitchen cupboard, used occasionally for making sauces.

Madeira Wine: The Present

Now, over five and a half centuries since grapes were first planted on Madeira, the tide has shifted yet again. A major turn-around for the industry started after Portugal joined the European Union in 1986, when subsidies for structural improvements and maintenance of vineyards, and producer support to maintain the lengthy and costly ageing process, among other aid, has seen renewed life injected into the madeira wine industry. Bulk wine shipments, formerly the majority of exports, were outlawed in 2001, and an update to production regulations, including the introduction of 40, 50 and over 50 year old age categories as well as the recognition of tinta negra as a grape worthy of being put on labels, was implemented in 2015.

Significant marketing efforts, backed by the rising quality, are slowly but surely reinvigorating the image of madeira. Even native Madeirans, who in the past regarded their own wine as a rare, once-a-year Christmas treat with the traditional honey cake, bolo de mel, or as an offering to a distinguished guest, are consuming madeira in ever-greater quantities. It’s no longer just for tourists and export. This richly historic, fascinating wine is once again asserting itself as one of the world’s most singular beverages, and its future survival seems assured.

Text and Photos by John Szabo, MS