Wine industry

Because of its remarkable importance and the particular characteristics that set it apart, this industry has been, through the ages, not only one of the greatest sources of public wealth in this archipelago but also, together with the mildness of the climate and the enchanting landscape, one of the most notable factors in the widespread fame that the name of Madeira enjoys.

A few years after its settlement this island was already producing some wines, for Cadamosto, who was here around 1450, refers to them and to the cultivation of the vine. A warrant (provisão) of 1485 authorised the imposition of the wine levy (imposição do vinho) to meet the expenses of the municipality (concelho), and the charters of 1515 ordered that tithes be paid on the island’s wine.

According to Paulo Perestrelo da Câmara, Madeira exported its Malmsey and dry wines to the court of Francis I of France, who came to the throne in 1515 and died in 1547, at the time of the wars in which that sovereign had embroiled his realms; and Rebelo da Silva says in the Historia de Portugal that Belgium was already importing the island’s wines in 1567. We have read somewhere that an old register of this city’s customs house records that in 1566 Madeira exported some wines and that the price of a pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine then stood at 3,200 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis). There is also the account of Lopes’s voyage, written in 1588 and published in Purchas’ Pilgrinages, and Frutuoso’s ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra), written in 1590, both of which refer to the export of our wines in the 16th century. On p. 113 of the latter work we read that ‘Malmsey wine is the best to be found in the universe, and is taken to India and to many parts of the world’.

However, although it is well established that Madeira produced wines in the 15th century and that they were already being exported in the 16th, it is the opinion of Dr Azevedo, borne out by various facts, that exports began on a large scale only after 1640, and especially after the close alliance between Portugal and England sealed by the marriage of the Infanta Queen Catherine to Charles II in 1660. This was because many English merchants had settled in Madeira to take up this line of business, and our government heaped privileges and exemptions upon them.

In 1621 the Council and the inhabitants of Funchal requested a royal warrant admitting only Portuguese wines into Brazil, so that those of this island could easily be exported there. It seems, however, that nothing was done to protect our viticulture until 1643, when John IV sent a letter to the superintendent of the royal treasury (provedor da fazenda) instructing him to obtain wines here for the fleets.

In 1646, says the annotator of the Saudades, Madeira exported some 2,000 pipas of wine. Christopher Jeaffreson, who called at this island in 1676 on his voyage to the West Indies, states that he was told that in some years wine production amounted to 25,000 pipas, and he lists the imported goods that were bartered for these wines and for the sweetmeats made here. Jeaffreson had a quantity of wine loaded on to his ship bound for St Kitts.

Around 1680, according to Paulo Perestrelo, there were in the city of Funchal some ten English trading houses, another ten belonging to various other foreigners and six or eight Portuguese ones. They bought the wines ready-made and exported them, taking consumer goods in return. Some merchants began to distil the lower-grade wines into spirit (aguardente, distilled from sugar cane or wine), which they shipped to Brazil and the coast of Africa together with other imported goods, receiving slaves and gold in exchange.

The English traveller Atkins, who visited Funchal in 1720, says that he managed to acquire two pipas of wine here, giving two used suits for one and three second-hand wigs for the other. This report can be trusted only if we accept that the traveller confused pipas with gallons. What cannot be doubted, however, is that in olden times the barter of certain objects for wine was very common on the island: the Englishman Paterson, leader of an expedition that visited Madeira in 1698, relates that some of its members traded certain braided or embroidered articles of clothing here for wine and other provisions.

An article published in 1882 in the Wine and Spirits News states that Madeira wine had become very well known in England in the 18th century, and that in 1799, on 14 October, a convoy of 96 ships anchored in the harbour of Funchal to load 3,041 pipas of wine for the West Indies, part of which was then to go on to England.

José Soares da Silva, who around 1730 wrote the Memorias para a historia do governo de D. João o I, states there that Madeira ‘exported more than 20,000 pipas (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine every year, besides spirits’. An old set of statistics records that exports stood at 7,073 pipas in 1774, 10,819 in 1788, 13,713 in 1790, 16,891 in 1800, 22,000 in 1813, 18,000 in 1818, 10,115 in 1821 and 14,432 in 1825.

By 1830 exports had fallen to 5,994 pipas, but they later recovered markedly: 8,875 pipas left the island in 1834, 9,782 in 1840, 7,054 in 1844, 14,445 in 1849, 13,875 in 1850 and 12,356 in 1851.

In 1852 only 5,676 pipas were exported, already as a result of the mangra (powdery mildew of the vine, oidium) that was then devastating the island’s vineyards. Between 1853 and 1881 the largest quantity of wine exported was 4,204 pipas, in 1853, and the smallest 536, in 1865.

Exports amounted to 4,250 pipas in 1882, 2,759 in 1883, 3,210 in 1884, 3,701 in 1885, 5,227 in 1886 and 4,247 in 1887.

Exports of Madeira wine from 1910 to 1932 are shown in the following table. The quantities are easily converted into pipas, since each shipping pipa (see that entry) corresponds to 418 litres:

Years	Litres
1910	2,962,317
1911	3,189,672
1912	2,872,369
1913	3,242,427
1914	2,392,508
1915	2,630,393
1916	4,754,724
1917	1,268,781
1918	1,286,213
1919	8,361,286
1920	2,581,352
1921	1,429,858
1922	3,790,131
1923	3,558,193
1924	4,435,085
1925	4,884,110
1926	3,765,340
1927	3,303,997
1928	4,004,097
1929	4,392,128
1930	4,747,304
1931	4,670,113
1932	3,262,009

In 1920, 1921 and 1922 France imported 413,343, 95,458 and 1,705,187 litres of Madeira wines respectively; Germany 9,703,000, 72,381 and 348,428; England 304,437, 419,594 and 217,800; Sweden 1,111,033, 189,108 and 371,403; Denmark 297,465, 337,169 and 872,925; and Brazil 208,570, 33,923 and 68,740. In the days of the Empire, Russia was one of the chief importers of Madeira wines, receiving 770,840 litres in 1899, 674,600 in 1900, 491,420 in 1901 and 239,710 in 1902.

France was the country that imported the largest quantities of Madeira wine in 1922. However, the lack of a trade agreement with that country, based on the reform of our tariffs, meant that, after twelve years under a modus vivendi – with numerous short-term extensions obtained in recent times – the entry of our fortified wines was banned there in 1923, to the grave detriment of Madeiran and Portuguese wine-growing.

Our finest wines are today exported mainly to Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where they are consumed in large quantities (1921).

The wars between France and England, the American War of Independence and the campaigns of France against Europe, and especially against England (1754-1761, 1775-1783 and 1793-1815), gave rise, says Dr Azevedo, to a great demand for our wines. From 1810 to 1815 exports reached an average of some 20,000 pipas (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) a year. However, the adulteration or counterfeiting of these wines, carried out not only abroad but even on the island itself, gradually brought about the decline of a branch of trade that had remained fairly prosperous for more than half a century.

In 1809 7,000 to 8,500 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) was paid for a barrel of must, and the merchant sold the wine at 250,000 to 400,000 réis a pipa. In 1922 and 1923 the price of must ranged, respectively, between 30 and 35 escudos (Portuguese currency from 1911, = 1,000 réis) and between 85 and 110 escudos, while a pipa of wine fetched an average price of 30 pounds abroad. If one considers the value of our currency at the beginning of the 19th century and at present, it is easy to see that, although the conditions of our viticulture and winemaking have improved remarkably in recent years, they are nevertheless not as prosperous now as they were in times long past.

In earlier times, to prevent winegrowers from adulterating their wines, whether by fortifying them with low-quality brandies or by blending them with weak wines, a series of measures appeared: the decree of 22 December 1800, regulating and policing the marks on casks; the decree of 22 July 1801, prohibiting the admission of wines from the Azores into Madeira; the orders of the Treasury Board (Junta da Fazenda) barring wines from mainland Portugal from entering this island; and finally the municipal by-law (postura) of the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) of 27 May 1837, which sought to prevent the wines of the northern parishes (freguesia) from passing to those of the south. ‘But counterfeiting,’ says Dr Azevedo, ‘especially abroad, continued on a large scale, and the discredit and competition it brought upon the genuine wines of Madeira greatly harmed the esteem, value and consumption they had enjoyed.’

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At the same time,’ the same author says further, ‘other wines, such as port, sherry, the wines of Sicily and of France, and, from 1815, that of the Cape of Good Hope, flooded into the English market, and some of them became favourites of the palates of the wealthy. Thus, with Europe at peace in that year of 1825, and as agriculture developed, the then new generation grew accustomed to those other wines, to the detriment of those of Madeira, especially from 1825 onwards. This is shown by the interesting table of wines imported from various countries for consumption in England from 1784 to 1842, included in the article “Wine” of the Dictionary. . . of commerce. . ., by J. R. Mc. Cullosh. For the year 1784 this table records no import at all of Madeira wine; for the period 1786 to 1794 it gives 196,140 gallons; for 1805 to 1814, 354,050; for 1815 to 1820, 353,940; for the year 1821, 400,476; for 1825, 372,504; and then, in gradual decline, it reaches 1842, a year in which England imported only 65,509 gallons. Quantum mutatus ab illo! – Under the converging blows of fraud, competition and fashion, the trade in Madeira wines in the British markets therefore went into decline.',

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In compensation, however, though not a complete one, in the decade from 1830 to 1840 these wines gained ever greater standing in the markets of the Hanseatic cities, Russia, Holland and other parts of Europe, and in the United States of America. The United States of America imported some 4,200 pipas annually; the Muscovite empire, 2,000; the other countries, about 3000. As a result, the export of wine from this island, which in 1830 had fallen, as we have already said, to 5,994 pipas, steadily increased, reaching 9,782 in 1840, at a price of 30 to 44 pounds sterling per pipa.

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To prevent grapes of inferior varieties being mixed in the wine presses with those that produce the fortified wines of Madeira, there was formerly in each parish a general inspector chosen by the Municipal Council, with authority to appoint sub-inspectors charged with ‘supervising the purity of the grape harvests and the proper selection of the grapes, and all else concerning the quality of the crop’.

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The first appointment of inspectors for the grape harvests was made, we believe, at the council meeting of 21 August 1820, and at the meeting of 3 September 1836 those appointed to these posts were urged to avoid mixing ‘the grapes of bad wine, such as those called cachudo, malvazião, carão de dama, maroto, etc., with grapes of good quality’.

We said earlier that it was around 1660 that the export of Madeira wines began to grow, thanks to the impetus given to it by British merchants. Yet these merchants, whom our monarchs showered with privileges, even exempting them from the tax of 400 réis (old Portuguese money of account; 1$000 = 1,000 réis, 1:000$000 = one conto = 1,000,000 réis) on every pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine exported, introduced in 1646, later became the cruellest enemies of Madeiran viticulture.

Since they were almost the only buyers of wine, the British merchants became, as Dr Azevedo says, the supreme arbiters of its price, and everyone was left in complete subjection to them. At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th this subjection was hardly apparent, because the wines, thanks to their high price, paid owners and farmers a decent return. But as soon as those same wines began to decline, a long era of misery and privation began for many Madeirans, bringing profound changes to the economic situation of our island. ‘Before the abominable treaty of 1810,’ says Paulo Perestrelo da Câmara, ‘the English were forbidden to buy wine as must; but once this was permitted them, they became the arbiters of this commodity and the true masters of the land.’

Had it not been for a few respectable Portuguese trading houses on the island, foremost among them that of the holder of the entail (morgado) João da Câmara de Carvalhal, later Count of Carvalhal, the British merchants would have exercised the most deplorable tyranny here unchecked, while abroad they reaped the still considerable profits of exporting our wines. Several times these houses set remunerative prices for the must, to prevent it being bought at the derisory prices the English merchants established here sought to pay.

In 1852 Oidium Tuckeri appeared on the island and destroyed most of its vineyards, bringing poverty to many homes and forcing many Madeirans to emigrate to Brazil and other countries. Yet the dreadful crisis that then ravaged our land regenerated it, as Dr Álvaro de Azevedo judiciously remarks in his notes to ‘Longing for the Homeland’. ‘With the wine gone, the English merchant wound up his affairs as best he could and withdrew; of the old British houses there remained only those of Newton Gordon & Comp.ª, J. W. & T. Selby, Blandy, and Rutterford & Grant, the last two sustained chiefly by the valuable coal trade. Thus Madeira was freed from its capitalist masters. The peasant, spurred by necessity, devoted himself to the lands he farmed, working them not with a single crop, as the vine had been until then, but with several: sugar cane, which soon gave him more and quicker money than wine had in recent times; and cereals, pulses, sweet and ordinary potatoes, yams and vegetables, which soon brought back to his home the prosperity and joy that had so long eluded it.’

From 1872 to 1883 Madeira suffered fresh devastation, this time from the phylloxera invasion. Once its vineyards had been reconstituted by introducing resistant rootstocks, onto which the old varieties were grafted, the island again produced its delicious and celebrated wines. Unfortunately, however, the methods of adulteration we have already mentioned had not been forgotten. The way they were abused, chiefly abroad, where the labels of reputable exporting houses were even imitated to ease the acceptance of the commonest concoctions, did much to devalue our island’s principal product. It also made the grower’s position very critical, since merchants paid him derisory prices for his must, because they had difficulty finding buyers for their wines.

By exhausting the stocks of genuine Madeira wine, the Great War helped to raise the value of the harvests and stimulate exports. But if exports are to be maintained and developed, as is in the island’s interest, it is necessary, as everyone knows, that the flavour, body and aroma of the wine are not altered by adulteration. Blending our wines with weak wines from Portugal, or adulterating them in any other way, even one not harmful to health, is a mistake, or rather a crime, that could seriously damage the economy of this island, which has already suffered so many upheavals through the greed and lack of scruple of certain merchants.

In some foreign markets the abuse is quite often committed of presenting wines produced in Spain, Greece and other countries as coming from Madeira. This abuse must also be stopped. To that end it is necessary to enforce and extend the clauses of the Washington convention of 2 June 1911 and the provisions of articles 274 and 275 of the peace treaty signed at Versailles on 28 June 1919 between Germany on the one side and 27 powers on the other, one of them Portugal.

It is claimed that some wine-growers, in order to obtain more alcohol than they need and are entitled to, submit exaggerated returns of the must produced on their properties. If this is true, it is an abuse that certainly harms the interests of the island, since the surplus alcohol can be used in adulteration. On 15 October 1919 an attempt was made to obtain a law in Parliament authorising our wine-makers to use in preparing Madeira wines the same quantities of alcohol as are applied to port wines. Such a law, which would only have served to encourage fraud, was never approved. With alcohol and sugar in abundance, some merchants would have no need to buy from the farmer the wine required to fill the orders arriving from abroad.

Using grapes suited to making table wines in the preparation of fortified wines, although not a genuine fraud, should nevertheless be avoided, by creating special Madeiran types of table wine, as the regulations of 1913 permit. Some years ago a well-known oenologist succeeded in making a type of Madeiran table wine which some tasters considered of excellent quality.

We have dealt with the export of Madeira wines and with the need to restore to them the well-deserved reputation they once enjoyed in many foreign countries. We shall now present some data on the production, the principal types and the making of these wines, in order to complete the account we set out to write of one of the chief sources of wealth of our island.

Wine production, which stood at 25,440 pipas (wine casks) in 1813, had fallen to 20,986 pipas in 1847, to 11,140 in 1850, to 2,277 in 1852, to 660 in 1853, to 138 in 1854 and to 38 in 1855. From 1856 onwards a small increase in production can be seen compared with those last two years, but in 1858 it still did not exceed 197 pipas, and it fell to 162 the following year. In 1861 and 1865 production was 400 and 5,000 pipas respectively. In 1882, when phylloxera (see that entry) was still wreaking great havoc in the island’s vineyards, it was about 4,500 pipas, dropping to 3,500 in 1883.

The grafting of the old grape varieties onto resistant rootstocks and the large-scale use of Jacquez as a direct producer greatly improved the island’s situation in the following years. Production reached some 8,000 pipas in 1895, 9,200 in 1900 and 11,401 in 1909.

Funchal and Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’) are the municipalities with the largest wine production, followed by the municipalities of São Vicente, Porto Moniz, Porto Santo and Calheta. The fortified wines come from the south coast of Madeira, especially from Câmara de Lobos and Funchal, but the wines of Porto da Cruz (‘harbour of the cross’), on the north coast, are as a rule of very good quality.

The principal Madeiran wines are the following: Malmsey, Boal, Sercial (white grape variety), Verdelho, Tinta and Madeira. The first four take their names from the grapes that produce them; the last comes from blending various Madeiran grape varieties in the wine press.

Malmsey is sweet and aromatic and, in the view of Frutuoso and of modern English consumers, the most valuable of the Madeira wines. Boal is also aromatic and ‘excellent for the table or toast’. Sercial is dry and cannot be drunk before eight or ten years; at that age, however, it is regarded ‘as one of the most delicate and wholesome wines of the island’. Verdelho is strong and aromatic and ‘is of great value for the table’; and Tinta is sweet and aromatic, especially while young, and owes its colour to the grape skins left in the wine during fermentation. Madeira, the most common of the island’s wines, comes from grapes of various varieties pressed together in the wine presses, and may be more or less strong and more or less aromatic according to its age and composition.

It is Madeira that the island exported, and still exports, on a large scale. In the English markets this wine was once known as East or West India Madeira when it had been sent out to those countries to improve through the action of the heat, and as London Particular when it had not made such a voyage.

In Madeira a wine called surdo is made by adding large quantities of alcohol to the musts. This wine, which retains part of its sugar, is used to give body to other wines and also to sweeten them. It was once known in England, to which small quantities of it were exported, as Nuns’s wine.

We said earlier that the present average price of a pipa (wine cask and measure, c. 400–500 litres) of wine was 30 pounds, but we are told that some old wines have lately been sold at 100 pounds. Johnson, who wrote his Handbook in 1885, states there that the price of Madeira wine ranges from 25 to 300 pounds per pipa, and at the beginning of the 19th century, in the period of great exports, the price varied between 55 and 90 pounds. A pipa of wine cost 15, 18 and 20 pounds before the last war (1914-1918), about 40 pounds in 1878 (average price), 50 to 80 pounds in 1856, 25 to 50 some years earlier and 30 to 44 in 1840.

The grape harvest takes place in September, but in warm, sunny spots it can begin at the end of August, and in high, cold places it can last until the middle of October. The grapes are crushed in the wine press by barefoot men, and beside the press stands a vat to receive the must. Once the grapes have been pressed, the pomace is piled in the centre of the press and bound in a spiral with a thick rope. Boards are then laid on top of it, and on these the beam exerts its pressure: a thick timber tightened by means of a screw that passes through one of its ends and is fixed below to what is called the press stone.

Compressed in this way, the pomace yields a further quantity of must, which runs out through the spout of the press into the vat standing at a lower level. The work of extracting the grape juice is not yet finished, however, for there remains the second treading (repisa), a final crushing of the pomace, likewise carried out by barefoot men inside the press. This operation is extremely strenuous and can only be done well by young, healthy men.

Piquette (água-pé, thin drink made from pomace and water) is made by pouring water over the pomace and pressing it again. When alcohol is added, it gives a weak wine that is drunk in the countryside of the island.

The must is carried in barrels or in goatskins to the grower’s wine store, where it is poured into pipes or vats and ferments, as a rule for two months. When fermentation is over, the wines are drawn off the lees and transferred to other casks, previously washed, disinfected with lime and finally sulphured. There they are clarified with eggs, milk, ox blood or clay.

After clarification the wines are sent to the estufas (heated store for ageing Madeira wine), unless they are being matured by the canteiro system (natural ageing of the wine in casks on wooden supports, without artificial heating). It was once the custom to add alcohol to the wine before heating, but today the most common practice is to add none until afterwards. Alcohol distilled from sugar cane is now used in treating our wines. Around the middle of the 19th century, however, the alcohol used for this purpose was made from the wines of the north, and at the beginning of that century foreign brandies were often used to treat the island’s wines. The records of the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) contain several petitions from the Senate (senado, the municipal council) asking for the import of these brandies into Madeira to be banned.

To weak Madeiran wines 10 to 11 per cent of alcohol is generally added, to better wines 6 per cent, and to vinho surdo (sweet must fortified to stop fermentation, used for sweetening) 30 per cent. This last wine serves, as we have already said, to improve other wines and give them body, and its use is preferable to that of sugar syrup, which growers once used widely. Boiled must (arrobe) is little used today in treating wines.

According to Dr Ferreira da Silva, Madeiran musts have a sugar content of 19 to 28 per cent. Kickton and Murdfield state that, to prepare the fortified wines of Madeira, ‘it is necessary to increase the noble and vinous quality by adding musts that have been made surdo (abafado or surdo wines, jeropigas), and liquids distilled from wine’. They go on to add, however, that alcohol, as a rectified product of sugar cane, is also used on a large scale on the island to season the wines. The same authors further state that Madeira wine is a dessert wine of a distinctive character, prepared exclusively on the Portuguese island of Madeira, and that its composition varies considerably across analytical results. This is due not only to the sugar content, which differs among the various base wines, but above all to the variety of sweetening methods employed.

The decree regulating the trade in and production of Madeira wines dates from 8 November 1913. Another, which appeared in 1915, failed to gain approval after the press, the administrative bodies and the people of the island rose up against it. The main provisions of this latter decree, and what was said and written about it, are set out in a publication entitled A Imprensa, as Colectividades do Distrito e o Projecto de Regulamentação da Produção, Fiscalização e comercio dos Vinhos da Madeira (Funchal), (1916).

From the middle of January 1924 a commission sat in Funchal, charged by the Ministry of Agriculture with proposing to the Government the amendments to be made to the regulation of 8 November 1913, so that wines might be inspected as strictly as possible and adulteration prevented.

On the purchase of musts from growers and the export of wines, the civil governor José Nosolini issued a Regulation dated 18 October 1939, which lays down the conditions under which such purchases and exports must be made.