Madeira is fortifying its fuddy-duddy image with a spirited campaign,
says Peter Grogan
João Branco rises early on harvest day. At 70, he’s as spry as men half his age and moves nimbly down the mountainside to the little terrace where he tends his beloved Verdelho vines. Three hours later, he is at the unloading bay of the Madeira Wine Company in Funchal, having delivered his entire crop to winemaker Francisco Machado Albuquerque. All 60 kilos of it.
He may supply the smallest quantity of the 800 or so growers who provide the company’s raw materials, but even the largest manages only 35 tonnes, and this diversity – not just of growers but of vine varieties and micro-climates – is reflected in the company’s output. Albuquerque oversees the making of up to 64 different wines – and 30 per cent of the island’s total production – in a single year. The company sells vintages dating back to 1908. (A little of the wine’s intense flavour of coffee, nuts and spice goes a long way, which is just as well at £500 a bottle.)
“The soil here is extremely acidic and that is what keeps the sweetness of the wines in balance,” is Albuquerque’s viticultural analysis. Or, more poetically: “The whole beauty of the island is expressed in their bouquet.”
So what exactly is Madeira and what distinguishes it from that other great Portuguese export (excluding José Mourinho), port? Both are fortified wines, meaning that the fermentation process is stopped by the addition of grape spirit, which at 96 per cent alcohol would stop anything in its tracks. This helps to preserve some of the fruit’s sweetness.
Uniquely, Madeira is then heated to around 45C; the best wines are warmed naturally by the sun, in oak barrels stored in the rafters of the wine lodges; the three-year-olds are heated more pragmatically in purpose-built tanks. It is then that the wines develop their characteristic, rich tang of dried fruits, nuts and caramel. “Unlike port, there are virtually no primary fruit flavours remaining when the wines are released for sale,” says Jacques Faro da Silva, the Madeira Wine Company’s general manager. “Everything has evolved by then.”
The heating process also allows these wines to age more or less indefinitely. Even the contents of a bottle left uncorked will suffer no deterioration for at least a year.
The company’s biggest-selling wine is Duke of Clarence Rich Madeira, made from red Tinta Negra Mole grapes and sold under the Blandy’s label, one of the five original family firms that now form the company. Widely available for about £10, it’s an excellent introduction to Madeira. The wine is deep and dark with plenty of coffee and raisin sweetness and enough of that acidity to keep it from cloying.
Historically, the wine has a rather fuddy-duddy image, which the Madeira Wine Company (now part of the Symington port dynasty) is keen to change. The launch in UK supermarkets of Alvada, a smartly packaged blend of five-year-old wines with a shocking pink label, has been a success.
Unusually, it’s made from two of the four “noble” white grapes varieties, Bual (for flavours of almonds and apricots) and Malmsey (for sweetness, richness and depth) and is delicious with chocolate.
Moving up the quality scale, we come to the “special reserve” and “extra reserve” wines – blends of different vintages with a minimum of, respectively, 10 and 15 years maturation in oak casks. Each is made from a single grape variety – the other two are Sercial (sometimes known by its less noble soubriquet of “dog-strangler”, in reference to the extreme acidity of the young wine) and Verdelho, a grape widely used in Australian whites.
These two make the drier, lighter wines with crisp, citrus-peel aromas and figgy, marmaladey flavours. Although Madeira is thought to have an affinity with nuts and dried fruit, Sercial goes surprisingly well with sushi.
However, the greatest treasures of this island are the “vintage” wines, made from grapes from a single year’s harvest and aged for a minimum of 20 years.
They emerge with all those nutty, coffee and dried-fruit flavours deliciously intensified by the effects of evaporation. This “angels’ share” can be as much as six per cent per year so after 20 years there’s not much left.
“Wine is the biggest industry on the island after tourism,” says the secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, Manuel Antonio Correia. “And the vineyards create some of the landscapes that the tourists love, so everything is in harmony.”
I’m sure old João Branco, toiling up his vertiginous hillside, would agree – once he got his breath back.
Prices for 10-year-old wines start at about £12; 15-year-olds cost from £15-£25. Waitrose has a good selection of Madeiras, as does Berry Bros & Rudd (0870 900 4300) and Tanners (01743 234455). Vintage wines start at about £50.
Jonathan Ray returns next week.
Wines of the week
2001 Duque de Viseu, 12.5% vol, Portugal (£5.49; Majestic and Waitrose, with 20% off at Waitrose today and tomorrow). Black cherries, bitter chocolate, smooth oak and decent bottle-age aren’t usually on the menu for this price. If you can catch the discount, it’s a steal – if there’s a better red at the price, I’d like to know.
2004 Fox Creek Verdelho, 13.5% vol, Australia (£7.99; Oddbins). Verdelho (pronounced “verdel-yo”) is about the only Portuguese grape variety to have emigrated successfully. This is a great introduction: big and rich, with a zesty nose of limes and creamy pineapple flavours.
2002 Quinta de la Rosa, 13.5% vol, Portugal (£10.95, or £9.85 by the case; Berry Bros. 0870 900 4300). Expensive, toasty oak and expansive, brambly fruit flavours, with plenty of structure and balance. A lot of wine for the money.
2003 Quinta do Crasto, 14% vol, Portugal (£6.99; Adnams 01502 727222). Made from the grape varieties used for port, this has some of the same blackberry fruit and lingering spicy tannins and it’s cheaper in Southwold than in Setúbal. A char-grilled steak would be a perfect accompaniment.
Published in N16 Magazine – Spring 2003
When I told my wife I was going to taste some of the wines at Yum Yum and Mesclun for this issue, she said ‘On mescaline? That’s nice, dear.’ I’m not sure which is more alarming, her insouciance or the bewildering prospects that flashed before my bleary eyes – a tasting at The Tup on crack cocaine, or a tryout at the Rose & Crown on benzedrine and LSD. Mind you, the permutations could keep me in column inches for years to come. Settling for my usual two-valium-and-a-barley-wine, as peyote seems unavailable in the local area, I pulled on my Afghan and tottered out into the world.
The liquids that swirled into view at Atique Choudhury’s stand-out Thai eatery, YumYum included a Côtes de Provence rosé 2001 from Chateau l’Aumerade. It’s a little timid, but in a doe-eyed, winsome, Turkish Delightful sort of way – it has a nice body and would go with anyone, sorry, I mean anything, for £14.90. Equally come-hitherish is Michel Torino Torrontes 2000 from Argentina’s Cafayate Valley (£14.95) – ripe guavas on the nose transform themselves into a steely, mineral finish. ‘Peppermint’, said His Rabness, who, once again, was in thirsty attendance. ‘Make that a high-pitched, super-green mintiness’, I flounced in reply as synaesthesia set in.
Atique is long established in Stokie, having started out at the much-lamented Spices with none other than Das Sreedharan of the Rasa conglomerate in attendance. He knows his market, and prices are generally modest – this may in part account for the surprising absence from the list of any Alsace wines, or Gewurztraminers, as the good ones don’t come cheap.
A good alternative might be Brown Brothers Late-Picked Muscat 2000 (£4.50 glass / £17.50 bottle) – unctuously sweet with smoky, ripe mangoes and caramel, this has enough body and clout to deal with a face full of chillies. In general I’m not a big fan of red wine with Asian food, but I’ll make an exception for Groot Konstantia Landgoed Pinotage 2000 (£21.50) from South Africa’s oldest estate – founded in 1685, by God. It has a lovely truffly nose and expensively toasty oak to complement the black fruit and cigar-box flavours. If someone else is paying, you could suggest a bottle of Champagne Moutard Cuvée Réserve (£27) which seems to go surprisingly well with the starters – it’s 100% Chardonnay, with that nicely rounded fruit and biscuityness we like so much.
Everything was getting seriously swirly by now, so we staggered through a door into another doorway within a doorway and…into Mesclun. The excellent wines here are largely provided by the knowledgeable Thibault Lavergne, whose Vinothentic operation is, in every sense, locally based. He lives in Stokey but, more to the point, his speciality is in finding small, old-established, family-run domaines making wines by traditional methods. One such is Les Anisses Blanc 2001, a Vin de Pays de Cassan made from Carignan Blanc and Terret (£2.90 glass / £10.50 bottle).
Versatile with food and excellent value for money, this has good length and body and bright, fresh fruit with hints of elderflowers – M. Lavergne suggests greengages in his tasting notes, and, not having tasted one since I was about six, I will defer to his judgement in this important matter. Vinothentic supply a number of Michelin-starred restaurants up West so we’re rubbing shoulders with the quality here, and you can see it in Henri Delagrange’s Bourgogne Aligoté 1999 (£18.00). I didn’t know Aligoté could be this good – fat, toasty and rich with excellent fruit and length – it kicks the majority of upper-end Maconnais and Challonais Burgundies into touch and would be fab with a grilled fish.
The owner Salih also buys wine from a big trade supplier, Enotria, including their classy Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, made by Veritiere, (£14.50) which is bone-dry up front but mellows out with a touch of honey and nougat – or should that be Torrone?
Les Anisses Rouge 2000 (£same as the white) is a smooth and well-made, crowd-pleasing sort of a wine with redcurrant fruit and enough body to stand up to some nice charcuterie or a coarse paté. Domaine Gigondan (£15.50) is not a spelling mistake, but could be, as it’s a spicy, peppery Grenache with all those Garrigue flavours of black olives and thyme and eucalyptus. It’s as classy a Côtes du Rhône as you’ll find and needs big food – a game pie would be good. At £17.50, Chateau Verriere Bellevue 1999 is claret for grown-ups which (probably) won’t break the piggy-bank. It’s made from fruit from 45-year old vines (Thibault knows this sort of stuff) of Merlot and Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc. It’s another big-food wine – roasts or grills would be the thing – with a good tannic backbone, some vanilla, oak and tobacco notes to the nose and ripe bramble and prune flavours. So we called out for another drink, and the waiter brought a tray …
N16 Magazine
