Understanding the different Madeira styles

Madeira is a wine that behaves like no other. Acidity, heat and air combine to make it one of the world’s most resilient wines – a dream for a desert island.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for a selection of top Madeira styles

Fortified and shipped over ever-increasing distances in the 16th century, Madeira gained natural stability in cask. By the time it was landed on remote shores (both the West Indies and the east coast of North America were early markets), the wines were seemingly indestructible and could be enjoyed in literally all weathers.

Grapes

Four white grapes are the key to Madeira, which is possibly the world’s original varietal wine. Sercial, Verdelho, Bual (or ‘Boal’) and a sub-set of Malvasias all have their own distinct flavour profiles but retain their acidity when grown at different altitudes on Madeira’s volcanic soils.

Collectively, these grapes occupy around 120 hectares on this sub-tropical island and each is credited with producing different styles of high quality Madeira, from dry (Sercial) to medium-dry (Verdelho), medium-sweet (Bual) and sweet (Malvasia).

The lion’s share of Madeira comes from a pale red grape called Tinta Negra. With over 220ha on the island it has long been favoured by growers for its ability to produce consistent yields, and by winemakers for its capacity to be molded into a variety of different styles.

It’s only since 2015 that Tinta Negra has come to enjoy equal status with the white grapes, and the name can now appear in its own right on the label.

Ageing

Madeira wine is shaped by age, something for which there is no substitute. Inexpensive wines, mostly made from Tinta Negra, are artificially heated in a process called estufagem that caramelises the sugars and lends something of a ‘maderised’ taste.

But for depth and complexity you need to look for so called canteiro wines, aged in cask for anything from five to 50 years. This is where Madeira’s sub-tropical warmth lends a hand, with the wines ageing at ambient temperatures in warm lofts that emulate the long sea voyages that they once endured. With age, a relatively simple, acidic wine is transformed into something ethereal, even life changing…

Styles

So-called ‘vintage’ or frasqueira wines have to spend at least 20 years in wood to qualify as such, although many are left for considerably longer – Blandy’s still have a quantity of 1920 Bual still waiting to be bottled.

With so much development required, these wines are necessarily expensive, but a newer category called colheita or ‘single harvest’ makes it more accessible.

Then there are blended wines bottled at 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years old, where a sense mystery often equates to profound depth and complexity.

Tasting the wines

These categories were all well represented at a tasting held recently for members at 67 Pall Mall in London. The wines had all been decanted a day in advance and the fusion of heady aromas was almost overwhelming.

This was a line-up of contemporary Madeira at its best, representing three out of the seven exporting houses, and six different styles. The wines were all chosen for being both commercially available as well as expressing some of the best that Madeira has to offer.

Some tasters present were well–versed in Madeira, which has a tasting language of its own. Others were being introduced to the wines for the first time in what I hope proved to be a life changing tasting.

Decanting

But why decant so far in advance? Having aged for so long in the presence of oxygen, Madeira evolves very differently in bottle, sometimes developing bottle-stink due to the absence of air.

Thorough aeration helps the wine to re-emerge, and a day in a decanter can make all the difference between a wine that may seem dull or thrilling. And of course, once you have decanted the wine you can keep going back for a glass: the next day, next week, next month, even the next year in some cases – Madeira is the wine that keeps on giving.

Tasting the different styles of Madeira:

Seven Madeira styles: the bottles to look for

You may also like:

Madeira: Travel guide

Know your Sherry styles

Revisiting vintage Port 1994

Aged white Rioja back to 1920: What does it taste like?