This blog is an edited version of a Madeira ‘masterclass’ I gave at the Portuguese Embassy in London on October 29th 2008. The subject is Colheita Madeira. Never heard of it? Read on …

1: THE PLACE

Madeira is an island, or rather a small group of islands, lying 365 miles off the coast of Morocco. It’s north of the Canaries, and south of the Azores. It looks grand but lonely as you come in off the sea roads.

What’s it doing there?

Volcanic activity is the answer. One of the motors for plate tectonics is volcanic activity along mid-ocean ridges, pushing the ocean crust apart. The Atlantic was born about 150 million years ago as Gondwanaland sundered, and the sea (or rather the depression in which the sea lies) has been expanding at about the same rate as fingernails grow ever since, pushed apart by molten rock from the earth’s mantle. About 20 million years ago (exact estimates differ), the shield volcano of which present-day Madeira constitutes the summit broke the sea surface. It’s part of the colossal Tore undersea mountain chain, and the rocks plunge a lot further beyond the present-day water’s edge. Even the strait between Madeira itself and nearby Porto Santo is 2,300 metres deep.

There were at least four phases of mountain-building volcanism on Madeira. The last 1.7 million years have been quiet, though, and there have been no eruptions of any sort for 6,500 years. Geologically, of course, that still makes it a very young and exciting place, and explains the dramatic relief of the island. The highest peak lies at 1,861 metres and there are five over 1,600 metres; at least one-third of the island lies at over 1,000 metres above sea level; you’ll find cauldrons and gorges there; and you’ll also find the world’s second highest sea cliff, the 580-m Cabo Girão.

Because of its latitude – which is roughly the same as Casablanca, Baghdad, Shanghai, Perth and Los Angeles – and the fact that it is surrounded by a great deal of ocean, the climate is sub-tropical and mild. There are big differences depending on relief – the mountains get 3,000 mm of rain a year, whereas at sea level the figure is a more manageable 500 mm a year. (London enjoys 590mm, though it feels like a lot more.) One of the viticultural problems on Madeira is that winters can be too mild, and the vines don’t get a chance to become fully dormant, particularly on the lower slopes. Average summer temperatures are about 22°C, which is warm but not roasting; average winter temperatures, by contrast, are about 16°C, which is very mild.

The soils are evidently all of volcanic origin, though in contrast to those of the infant volcanic island of Santorini they’ve had millions of years of weathering into acid clays with a relatively high organic content. That organic matter is due to the island having been forested for hundreds of thousands of years before it was first settled by the Portuguese in the 1420s. (Madeira means ‘wood’ in Portuguese.) The first settlers used fire to clear land to begin farming, and the fire was said to have burned for seven years.

The main island of Madeira, on which nearly all the vines grow, is 732 sq km – which makes it just over twice as large as Malta, but less than half the size of the Isle of Skye. A quarter of a million people live there, so it’s populous. If you take that pressure of population, and add it to the precipitous relief and the island’s remoteness, you will realise that there isn’t a lot of room for vineyards. Other crops have to be grown; houses, schools and hotels built. Amost all the cultivable land on the island is intricately terraced and supplied with water by the complex system of levadas or irrigation channels – there are 2,150 km of these, and they are one of the wonders of Europe.

2: THE WINE SCENE

Vineyards? It’s difficult to get hold of exact vineyard figures for Madeira, but a census planned for next year should make the picture clearer. I have seen figures varying from 1000 ha to 1800 ha of vineyards on the island, but of these only around 440 ha are Vitis vinifera and thus elegible for the Madeira DO. (The rest are non-vinifera grapes used for locally consumed bulk wine.) Holdings are tiny – just 30 ares (0.3 ha) per owner on average. Most vines are grown on the pergola system, locally called latada.

I’ve been to Madeira twice, and the second time was at vintage. We were taken to a typical tiny vineyard where picking was in progress. It was one of the most astonishing sights I’ve witnessed in 20 years of vineyard visits. The vines were mixed up with potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and melons. The fruit was shaded under heavy overhead pergola canopies. I saw bunches of grapes dangling alongside squashes. Looked at through the optic of conventional viticultural thinking, it was crazy. The grapes were low in sugar, high in acidity – and the resulting base wines were almost as unattractive as Champagne’s vins clairs.

But, like Champagne, a strange and wonderful metamorphosis then takes place. In Champagne, the metamorphosis is based on secondary fermentation + maturation in cool conditions. In Madeira, it is fortification + maturation in warm conditions. In both cases, though, it is that acidity – initially so disconcerting -- which helps hold the wine together, helps it to survive the trauma of metamorphosis, and helps structure its new incarnation. If it didn’t have that acidity, which seems wildly out of balance when you taste the grapes, the musts and the new wines, then the wines would never survive the ageing process they are going to go through, and they would never be so vibrantly alive 20 or 30 or 80 years later.

There are some modern trellised vineyards on the island, but I suspect it would be a great mistake to attempt contemporary best-practice viticulture here, since you might end up with very boring Madeira 30 years down the line. (This would be a great subject for an MW thesis.)

Madeiran winemaking is as complicated as everything else on the island, so I merely resume the outlines here. The main points to remember are that both red and white grapes are used, and that the winemaker must know quite clearly what kind of wine he intends to make before he begins.

The wines are crushed and sometimes immediately pressed, but sometimes given skin maceration. (You will find tannin in some Madeiras.) A little chaptalisation is allowed. Fermentation is generally warm – mid-20°Cs – and the wine will be fortified with 96% abv grape spirit at some point, the exact point depending on how sweet the winemaker wants the finished Madeira to be. To make sweet Madeira, you fortify early; to make dry Madeira, you fortify late. The wine then rests for a couple of months before beginning its all-important, metamorphosis-inducing ageing process.

Madeiran ageing uses a combination of heat and air. In other words, the two elements which kill most wines are the making of Madeira. Perhaps that’s why it lasts so long. The Madeirans attempt, lovingly, to kill it with heat and air; it survives; and it ends up almost immortal.

What are considered to be the finest wines of all are put into a variety of old wooden casks of various sizes and various wood origins and placed in attics: this system is known as canteiro. The heat and air they receive in this case is the warmth and the air of the island itself.

All of the other wines are put into heating tanks for around three months. This system is called estufagem. All of the companies have their own way of doing it, but the maximum temperature is 55°C and most run their tanks at between 40°C and 50°C, sometimes with cycles of rising and falling temperatures. After that, the wines go into wooden casks and vats for further ageing.

There is a lot of finesse in the wood ageing of madeira. Here are some of the choices.

Larger or smaller casks and vats?
Wood of different ages and origins?
Warmer or cooler parts of the ageing lodges?
Do you top up - or not?

These are all key decisions, and will deliver a wide variety of finished wines. Topping up in particular is a huge issue, and would be another great subject for an MW thesis provided it could be adequately researched. Evaporation can be up to 7% a year on Madeira, so it’s a major decision for everyone. The wines – assuming more than one cask is available, and very often it isn’t -- are then blended, adding further layers of finesse.

Note that colour, sweetness and alcohol can all be adjusted prior to bottling. Like topping up, these things can mark the wine a great deal.

Just one final issue: grape varieties.

There are four classic varieties: Sercial, generally made dry; Verdelho, generally made medium-dry; Boal, generally made sweet; and Malmsey or Malvazia, generally made lusciously sweet. All of these are white varieties.

Sercial is the Portuguese variety known on the mainland as Esgana-Cão or ‘dog strangler’ – my favourite grape name in the world bar none.

Madeira’s Boal is identical to the Douro’s Malvasia Fina.

Malmsey should be Malvasia Candida. (If you find the two similar, that’s why.)

Terrantez, which is a white variety called Folgasão on the mainland and – oh dear -- Malvasia de Trincheira in the Douro, is also encountered, and can be of either Verdelho or Boal levels of sweetness.

There are other varieties too, both new and old, but those are the main names you will see on labels.

If you don’t see a variety mentioned on a label, the wine is almost certainly made of Tinta Negra Mole, a red grape that is the most widely planted of the DO varieties. (Of the 440 ha of Vinifera on the island, around 88% is TNM, with the named varieties accounting for just 12%, or about 53 ha: an astonishingly small amount.) Tinta Negra Mole can be made to any level of sweetness, the decision often being based on the altitude of the vineyards, with the higher-positioned TNM being made in a drier style and the lower positioned TNM being made in a sweeter style. You can also put Tinta Negra Mole on the label if you want, though I’ve never seen it. (There was some discussion of this issue at the Masterclass, and the word from Madeira is that it will begin to be seen on labels soon.) Blends of the approved varieties are also possible.

And now, at last, we’re finally going to get on to Colheita.

3: COLHEITA

Portugal joined the EU in 1986. That put in train a systematization of its higgledy-piggledy wine practices and wine laws. The rules regarding varietal labelling and wine styles have all been tightened up, though this remains work in progress rather than a finished scenario.

In the past, Madeira had two problems satisfying its customers.

One was that great Madeira needs, to a far greater extent than most wines, time. Very young port can be delicious. Very young Madeira, by contrast, is often much less impressive -- even though fine old Madeira is unquestionably one of the greatest wines in the world. How can you bridge the gap?

Blends and solera wines were two ways of doing it, but they weren’t always effective in expressing the drama of the island’s greatest wines, and they didn’t have the customer-friendly focus and appeal of the single vintage.

The second and related problem was that there was no way of selling any single-harvest Madeira before its 20th birthday, which was the first moment at which vintage category Madeira was allowed to be bottled. Much Madeira, in other words, didn’t have enough time, but Vintage had almost too much time, and was very expensive as a consequence.

Colheita is the solution to both problems. I’ll now quote Paul Symington of the Madeira Wine Company, to give you a bit of the background.

I was reading through the Madeira categories some years ago at my house in Porto. This was the official specifications issued by the IVM for all Madeira categories. I saw a paragraph that allowed for Colheita wines. In other words, any Madeira producer could sell a wine of a single year, provided it is aged for a minimum of five years prior to bottling and sale. At that time, nobody was selling these wines. I had no idea they existed.

Having seen and worked on the considerable success of LBV Port and having seen what it had done to develop sales of premium Ports, I was convinced that Madeira should have a dated wine that did not need to be at least 20 years old, which inevitably makes this wine incredibly expensive and rare and out of reach of the average wine lover.

We therefore selected some wines that had originally been set aside for the long haul (to 20 years old) for Vintage Madeira, and bottled them early as Colheitas. First a range of Cossart Colheitas were launched in 1999 and in 2000 we launched a Blandy’s Harvest Colheita, the 1994.
The wines were very well received, and other producers followed within about 6 months. Sales of colheitas have now become a significant part of premium Madeira sales.

Colheita, in other words, is a single harvest wine which isn’t Vintage. It differs from Vintage – or Frasqueira as it is now called – in that it can be bottled at any time after five years, and it can also include wines made in estufagem, whereas vintage wines have to be aged in casks for the entire 20 years.

To be strictly accurate, both Frasqueira and Colheita have to be 85% from the same vintage, not 100%. This is important. In other words, an old wine might contain up to 15% of a much younger wine. This is the rule which sanctions topping-up.

Both Frasqueira and Colheita can be single variety or blends of varieties, and both ought to show their bottling dates. I say ‘ought’ because the rules say that the labels (and I quote from the English version) “should indicate … the date of bottling”. However many producers chose to do this via a bottling code which only they will understand.

Colheita has helped Madeira enormously, and it’s a category I’m very enthusiastic about. Put most simply, it enables drinkers to taste a little of the true grandeur of Madeira at an earlier stage, and for less of the outlay, than Frasqueira wines require.

[In order to prove the point, we then moved to the tasting element of the Masterclass. The six exporting shippers had each been asked to show some Colheitas. One shipper preferred to show Frasqueira wines, and one shipper showed a Coheita and a Frasqueira; the rest showed Colheitas. I have added scores for this transcription, though on the day of course every taster evaluated the wines for themselves.]

4: THE TASTING

Wine 1: D’Oliveira’s 1989 Sercial Colheita, bottled 2004.
D’Oliveira is a small company with 15 ha of its own vineyards, but which also buys grapes from about 40 farmers every year, too, and which has always held stocks and traded in old wines. It began as what is known as a partidista on Madeira, roughly the equivalent of an almacenista in Jerez. The owners told Alex Liddell when he was researching his book Madeira that they do no refreshing of their wines in cask. I always think the D’Oliveira style is marked by a kind of oxidative concentration, rigour and purity which you don’t find elsewhere.

(Technical detail provided: 20%; bottled 2004.)

D'Oliveira 1989 Colheita Sercial
-- Deep russet hazel.
-- Refined, fresh, typical touch of fried egg and wax (Sercial’s varietal allusions are always challenging) plus the vanilla and old furniture polish or varnish typical of long cask ageing; unusual yet attractive and close-grained.
-- Intense and searchingly dry, with scouring acidity packed inside candied green apple and green plum flavours, powering to the back of tongue. This has both weight and complexity -- and something even approximating to tannin: superb. Less dry than some Sercials (it has the sweetness of ripe orchard fruits plus a Seville orange note). Magnificent aperitif.
-- 18/20

Wine 2: Barbeito 1997 Single Harvest Meio Seco
We tasted both of the the two Barbeito wines next, even though the second one was a Malvasia, for the simple reason that Ricardo de Freitas doesn’t believe in any pre-bottling adjustment of the wines which gives them a very pure, non-interventionist style. Barbeito is another company with a distinguished tradition, founded in the 1940s by Mario Barbeito and now run by his grandsons, though it is half Japanese-owned. It has no vineyards of its own, but it buys from around 140 different farmers.

This wine has a wonderfully informative back label from which you can learn that it’s 100% TNM from a single vineyard in Estreito de Camara de Lobos, entirely aged in canteiro in 720-l French-oak casks, initially in a warm warehouse and later in a cooler one. It was bottled at 10 years, in 2007. The colour was astonishingly light when you consider it is entirely made from red grapes, though in this case there is no skin maceration. It was interesting to look at as a varietal TNM – it has a much sweeter and less rasping style of fruit to the Sercial, for example and, despite the always substantial acidity, the palate had a fleshy softness to it.

(Technical detail provided: sweetness 2.3 Baumé or 80.2 g/dm3; pH 3.34; VA 0.53g/dm3 in acetic.)

Barbeito 1997 Colheita Single Harvest Meio Seco
-- Pale gold.
-- Rich, sweet, bedded straw, creamed hazels, soft summer fruits: very ripe apricot or peach. Sumptuous and attractive, with some oxidative complexities.
-- Pure, intense, long, sumptuously balanced, clean sweeping flavours of apricot, apple and sweet grape; fine purity and focus. Sustained but controlled acidity within the context of its fleshy softness of fruit.
-- 15/20

Wine 3: Barbeito 2000 Malvasia
Ok, on to a Malvasia which one could enjoy as an aperitif. As before, bottled without any adjuncts which would change its balance.

Interestingly, Ricardo de Freitas recounts the way in which he tracked a certain cask through 2007, with the intention of bottling it as this wine. After the particularly hot summer of 2007, though, he found that this particular cask had performed better than the one he initially chose, and he therefore decided to bottle this one instead. On Madeira, in other words, the climatic aspect of terroir can go on having an influence on the wine even after the wine is made. The stamp of terroir includes cask ageing here

(Techincal detail provided: sweetness 4 Baumé or 99.2 g/dm3; pH 3.4; VA 0.64 g/dm3 in acetic; 18.5%; bottled January 2008.)

Barbeito 2000 Colheita Malvasia
-- Full gold in colour.
-- Intriguing complex of scents: tobacco, ash, earth, something vegetal, tinned tangerine, gentle turmeric or coriander spice. Not 'classic' but engaging.
-- Intense, deep, not unctuously sweet; indeed fresh, bright and refreshing. Perfect sweet-sour poise, and with enough acidity to make an invigorating aperitif. Silky textures and clean, mouthwatering finish. This already has the arresting quality of distinguished Madeira, and is just beginning to acquire the gravitas of age. Will it age in bottle?
-- 16/20

Wine 4: Henriques & Henriques Colheita 1998 Single Harvest
Like Pereira d’Oliveira, this is a company with a long history; both were founded in the same year, 1850. It owns of the largest vineyard on Madeira, which is all of 10 ha – at Quinta Grande at Ribeira do Escrivão. That’s also where the vinification facilities are. It has the reputation of being the modernist of the island. This wine is made from TNM, and aged in canteiro; it is labelled as ‘medium rich’.

(Technical detail: 19.3% alcohol; 120 g/l residual sugar, 0.92 g/l volatile acidity; pH of 3.47.)

Henriques & Henriques Colheita 1998 Single Harvest
-- Mid-walnut.
-- Fresh apple and tarte tatin, too; touch of toffee. Complete and engaging. Note of coffee beneath.
-- Intense, pure and long, with lots of almost sherbetty, fizzy apple fruit hidden inside soft toffee -- a toffee apple. Vivid, lively finish, both succulent and cleansing, with well-judged oxidative complexities.
-- 14.5/20

Wine 5: Blandy’s 1993 Colheita Bual
On, now, to the first wine from the island’s biggest producer, the Madeira Wine Company. The MWC was constituted at the beginning of the last century, though it incorporated many older companies, including the island’s most distinguished names – around 26 altogether. The Symington family of port fame were invited to become shareholders in 1988, and they now have a controlling interest in the company. The four principal brand names which continue to be used are Blandy, Cossart Gordon, Leacock’s and Miles.

(Technical detail: the wine was fermented off the skins using wild yeasts at relatively cool temperatures -- 18-21°C -- in stainless steel. Fortification followed three days later, and it was then aged entirely in canteiro in old American-oak casks, the casks being moved as the years pass from the hot top floor of the lodge to the cooler middle floor, and eventually to the coolest ground floor. 18% abv; 7.8 g/l acid; pH of 3.48; residual sugar 3.1 Baumé.)

Blandy's 1993 Colheita Bual
-- Light walnut; clear and bright.
-- Fresh, deep, fair amount of caskiness, classic, nutty, refined. Old furniture, but also a sweet sheen. Less fruit than the previous wine but greater finesse. Harmony and equilibrium.
-- Intense, deep, sweet but balanced. Initial nutty-earthy flavours. Faint mid-palate mushroomy touch giving way to raisin and other dried fruits, plus restained toffee and caramel. Even a little white chocolate to finish. Complete and well-crafted. Almost a violetty perfume once you've swallowed, typical of oxidatively aged wines and spirits.
-- 16.5/20

Wine 6: Henriques & Henriques Colheita 1995 Single Harvest
Another wine made from TNM, in canteiro. Labelled ‘fine rich’.

(Technical detail: 18.8% alcohol, Baumé 3.8, VA of 0.42 g/l as acetic; acidity 4.8 g/l -- yes, this is as tartaric; a pH of 3.45.)

Henriques & Henriques Colheita 1995 Single Harvest
-- Mid-walnut.
-- Gentle, soft, tobacco, grain, hint of spice. Very harmonious though a touch featureless.
-- Rich, full, toothsome, toffeed, touch of chocolate. Soft, mellow and gratifying, though we noted how subdued the acidity is here. Because of TNM in a certain position? Because of riper fruit from modern vineyards? Either way, it was an easy-going, pleasantly sippable colheita. Touch of anis to finish.
-- 13/20

Wine 7: Justino’s 1996 Colheita
This company is now owned by the French spirits business La Martiniquaise, which also owns Porto Cruz in Portugal. It has a large business in continental Europe. The technical notes tell me that it’s made from 95% TNM, with a small amount of Complexa and other red varieties. Complexa is a Portuguese crossing of Castelão with Tintinha and Muscat Hamburg, used as a deeper coloured and softer flavoured alternative to TNM on the island.

(Technical detail: this wine does have skin maceration; indeed it has 2 or 3 days pumping over, which may in part account for the deep colour, the deepest on show in the tasting. It may also account for the fact that we noted red-fruit flavours in this wine. Canteiro ageing. Abv 19%; acidity 5.6 g/l (as tartaric); pH is 3.36; residual sugar 121.4 g/l.)

Justino's 1996 Colheita
-- Very dark cherry-walnut; almost russet red at its core.
-- Very lushly fruity, rounded, with relatively little focus; grapy, toffee. Sweet and charming.
-- Tangy and lush, with generous, open flavours of raspberry and chocolate and coffee; touch of black treacle, too. Acidity is vigorous and supportive, stopping the wine from cloying. Not subtle, but exuberantly enjoyable.
-- 13.5/20

Wine 8: Blandy’s 1990 Colheita Malmsey

(Technical detail: in contrast to the Boal, this does have some skin maceration, and is fermented at a slightly higher temperature of 22°C. As before, it is entirely aged by the canteiro system in older American oak casks, and is moved through the lodge from warmer to cooler zones as it ages. 19% abv; acidity 7.65; pH 3.48; residual sugar is expressed as 3.3 degrees Baumé.)

Blandy's 1990 Colheita Malmsey
-- Pale to mid-walnut brown.
-- Soft raisins dressed in a little honey; chocolate undertow; touch of fig. Notes of old furniture behind. Smooth, rounded yet classy aromatic profile of great harmony.
-- Lush, tangy, deep, raisin-rich, with great purity behind. Lovely clean finish to mouth. Fresh, lively, athletic ... and hugely sippable. Wonderful balance would ensure that every drop was drained.
-- 17/20

Wine 9: D’Oliveira 1989 Colheita Malvazia

(Technical detail: bottled 2008; 20%.)

D'Oliveira 1989 Colheita Malvazia
-- Very dark: deep walnut brown with glowing russet heart.
-- Again the oxidative purity and focus -- no muddying of the waters here. Dark, almost burnt raisins but lifted by some fresh apple and grape behind. Almost a savoury note, too - umami. Very good.
-- Deep, full and rounded; much less linear than the Sercial. Lots of rigorous earthy sweetness, with pungent green-plum fruits backed by milk chocolate and Seville orange peel. Exuberant and lushly gratifying ... yet mouthwatering acidity too. Excellent, if a little less subtle and more frank than the Sercial. Almost a touch of tannin.
-- 17/20

The last three wines were all Frasqueira wines – in other words, wines which must be at least 20 years old, and must be aged in canteiro. (In contrast to Colheita which can be bottled from five years onwards, and which can be aged either by canteiro or estufagem.)

Wine 10: Borges 1979 Vintage Sercial

Our last new producer, and the final producer to be licenced for export, too. It’s also old-established, originally founded in 1877 and still family-run. It’s a small company, producing about 2,500 hl a year. Although the company chose to show vintage wines in London, they also market some colheitas, according to their website. No technical details supplied.

Borges 1979 Vintage Sercial Vintage
-- Mid-hazel in colour
-- Delicate, not forceful, quietly stated yet true, with refined vegetal and varnish notes. If there is fruit, it's green apple. Rain on dry dust to finish.
-- Deep, scouring, fresh, pure, mouth-tingling and good, as you'd expect from the Riesling of Madeira. Green apple vividness backed by volcanic earth. Touch of tannin. Yet c.f. diff with D'Oliveira's '89, which is less rounded and more oxidatively angular; is topping up the reason?
-- 16/20

Wine 11: Justino 1979 Vintage Terrantez

Terrantez is usually said (in the words of the Oxford Companion) to be “practically extinct”; according to the website MadeiraWineGuide.com (which I recommend for any of you who wish to deepen your knowledge of this magnificent wine style) , there is now less than 500 l of it produced each year on the island. We were, however, told by Humberto Jardim of Henriques & Henriques that his company has made substantial plantings of Terrantez which will come on stream before long.

(Technical detail: pressed without skin maceration, fermented in stainless steel, aged by canteiro. Abv 19.23%; acidity 8.4 g/l; pH of 3.3; residual sugars 72.8 g/l – which I think pitches it towards the Verdelho end of the Terrantez spectrum. In other words, this was our driest wine after the two Sercials.)

Justino's 1978 Vintage Terrantez
-- Deep gold to pale walnut.
-- Rounded and full; easy-going. Tangy; touch of grape dressed in soft caramel.
-- Tangy, smooth, caramelly, round. Relatively light-bodied. Dries towards the finish, which is when the extractive force of the wine pulls forward. Definitely towards the drier end of the Terrantez spectrum, and a good aperitif style.
-- 12/20

Wine 12: Borges 1977 Vintage Boal

Borges 1977 Vintage Boal
-- Deep yet clear walnut.
-- Soft, gentle, harmonious. Dates mingled with very delicate, understated apple, mushroom, and a touch of smoke. Quiet but attractive.
-- Good intensity: vivacious apple and citrus fruits backed by a dressing of light toffee. Pure and penetrating, yet rounded. Illustrates the polyvalency of Boal: fresh enough for an aperitif, yet sweet enough to be a wonderful partner for fruits or cheeses. Elegant and fine-contoured.
-- 16.5/20

5: CONCLUSION

Colheita has provided Madeira’s missing link. Blended Madeira is delicious, but it doesn’t always have the personality and impact of a Frasqueira wine. Colheita gives us a chance to taste and drink and enjoy Madeira with that kind of personality and impact for less outlay than before. Not every wine, furthermore, has the legs to become a great Frasqueira. Colheita, therefore, gives the producer more suppleness and flexibility about putting a wine on to the market at the perfect moment. (Colheitas could also be marketed at over 20 years, if they had been made with estufagem, for example, or if they weren’t up to Frasqueira standard.)

It was interesting to compare the older Colheitas with the Frasqueira wines, proving that there is a seamless transition between the two. Older Colheitas and younger Frasqueira wines in practice cover the same kind of quality spectrum.

Areas I would like to know more about include information concerning chaptalization, adjustment and topping up, and I would like to see bottling dates made mandatory in a way the consumer can understand, rather than hidden away in obscure codes. But broadly speaking, I am excited by the way that Madeira is heading, and hope that sales of this great drink make it worthwhile for more vineyards to be planted in the years ahead. Vineyard plantings, in the end, are the key to everything, and Madeira is almost the only place on earth of which it can unequivocably be said that more vineyards, and not fewer, are needed.