Madeira Wine

Madeira is known for many things, being a beautiful island, the hometown of Cristiano Ronaldo, and Madeira Wine.

The grapevines  that provide  the sweet wine are the among the first cultivated plants on the island and this allied to the portuguese craft and fame in the wine world made the Madeira wine almost predestined to greatness.  It’s exported all around the world and it has been going as far as Japan for centuries now, so it really does have a world tradition.  It was the beverage that the first independent americans used to toast their freedom from the British Empire.
The origin of the sweet sweet wine comes from the soil, that is consisted of basalt. This and the proximity to the sea enhances the grapes flavour.

There are five different types of grape used in the production of Madeira wine. “Tinta Negra” , a dark grape, the only one of the group. Then we have the green grapes, the “sercial”, “verdelho”, “boal” and “malvasia”.

After handpicked in a process that has remained untouched for centuries, these grapes go hrough rigoorous sanitary and quality checks to ensure that the wine, the final product, is the best quality possible.

After the squashing and filtering, the fermentation takes place. This process is altered so that the final flavour can be differentiated. The result of this makes the wine dry, medium dry, medium rich or rich.

After the fermentation and all is going on, the wine has to be aged, an important step in every wine production.

You can age the wine by the process known as “estufagem” that consists of the wine being poored into a steel vat with a metal tube that traverses its inside.. The metal tube has hot water coursing through it for three months so that the wine gains its flavour and smell.

You can also age the wine by a more traditional method. Tou simply poor the wine in wooden casks . It takes much longer but the wine feels more natural and tastier. The cost of it is that it takes almost three years from the beginning of the fermentation of Madeira Wine to the final product getting to the shelves.