Malmsey
Original title: Malvasia
Malvasia is a white grape variety said to have been brought to Madeira from Crete around 1445. It was later famed for producing Madeira's most celebrated wine, but its principal sub-variety, the Candia, had almost disappeared by 1944.
A white grape variety which, it is claimed, seems to have been brought from the island of Crete around 1445. The Jesuits cultivated it carefully at the so-called Fajã dos Padres (‘the priests’ flat’), and it began to earn a great reputation at the end of the 16th century. It has a thick ‘stock’ and upright canes, with almost equal five-lobed leaves and large oblong bunches.
The distinguished writer and eminent agronomist Andrade Corvo states, in his Memória sobre a «mangra» na Madeira, that there are four kinds of Malmsey: the candia or candel, the purple Malmsey, the babosa and Malmsey proper. Of these varieties the candia is the principal one, and it is said to have been the first grape variety introduced into Madeira.
Dr Gaspar Frutuoso tells us that in the year 1590 ‘Malmsey wine is the best to be found in the world, and it is taken to India and to many parts of the world. And for these fruits the island is very famous everywhere’.
An official report for the year 1944 states that the ‘Malvasia Candia’ has almost completely disappeared, with only the odd farmer keeping a few vines as a relic of a bygone age. See Phylloxera, Mangra, Mildew and Wines.
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 04-
Madeira's Malvasia wine began to gain great renown.
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Malvasia vines were reportedly imported from Crete; Cadamosto found newly planted vines on Madeira.
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Gaspar Frutuoso described Malvasia as the best wine in the world, exported to India.
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An official report noted that the Malvasia Candia vine had almost entirely disappeared from Madeira.
Place
Places mentioned · 03
Abroad
- Fajã dos Padres
Ribeira Brava. Coastal land where the Jesuits carefully cultivated Malvasia.
Fajã dos Padres is a small coastal fajã beyond Cabo Girão in the parish of Campanário, one of the best-known fajãs of Madeira. It was a Jesuit estate famed for the island's best Malmsey and also for Sercial; its Jesuit chapel was destroyed by Algerian corsairs in 1626. The Elucidário gives the pirate raid as 1625 in one note and 1626 in another.
- India
One of the destinations to which Malvasia wine was exported in 1590.
India is recorded as the place where several Madeirans served, including Lopo de Abreu, Pedro da Silva and the viceroy João Saldanha da Gama. The fame of Madeiran levada builders reached it. It is the native region of plants grown on Madeira, among them the mango, Hedychium gardnerianum, balsam and most bamboos.
People
People mentioned · 02- Gaspar Frutuoso1522–1591
Chronicler who wrote in 1590 that Malvasia was the best wine in the world, exported to India and elsewhere.
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Portuguese writer and agronomist whose memoir on the 'mangra' in Madeira distinguished four kinds of Malvasia.