Such a fundamental part of our vinous history, and yet today, we would assume 99.99% of Americans know nothing about Madeira. And of those that do, Madeira is solely a difficult-to-procure ingredient for an obscure French sauce first documented by Escoffier and championed by Julia Child. To be fair, Madeira is neither easy to find, nor easy to understand. It’s not easy, but it’s absolutely worth the try! What is Madeira Wine? After a week long visit to Madeira, exploring its sweet and sultry flavors, we still can’t give you a solid elevator speech on what it is! So please don’t feel frustrated, or put off, if you can’t sort it at first glance.

Put simply, Madeira is a fortified wine, aged under heat, and produced in the demarcated region of Madeira from approximately 5 distinct grapes. It’s sold as either Dry, Medium Dry, Medium Sweet or Sweet, all of which are marked by their high levels of acidity. This marked acidity is a direct result of its location: an archipelago, just off the northwestern coast of Morocco, composed of two inhabited islands – Madeira and Porto Santo – as well as two uninhabited islands, the Desertas and Selvagens. Of these four islands, only Madeira and Porto Santo grows grapes. On 500 hectares of volcanic soil, located primarily on the north coast, vines teeter precariously on death-defying slopes that have been made into terraces called “poios”. To irrigate, water was historically captured from the highest parts of the island (around 1800m) and channeled through 2150 km of man-made canals called “levadas” – many of which date back to the 16th century! If you’re looking for ingenuity at its finest, this is it!Īs for the grapes, your main protagonist is Tinta Negra Mole, which is a crossing of Grenache and Pinot Noir. But you’ll also stumble across four “noble” grapes including: Sercial, Verdelho, Boal (also known as Bual) and Malvasia (aka Malmsey). On rare occasion, Terrantez and Bastardo grapes might pop in to say hello, but their meager plantings make them unicorns hidden on the fringes. You might also find the Yeti of Madeira grapes (a lottery win if you find them): Carão de Moça, Caracol, Complexa, Deliciosa, Listrão, Malvasia Babosa, Malvasia Roxa (black grape), Moscatel de Málaga, Rio Grande, Triunfo, Valveirinho and Verdelho Tinto. If you’re now panicking that your next wine shopping adventure will result in sweaty palms and stunted prose when you can’t remember said Madeiran grape, don’t worry, because the process of making Madeira wine tends to strip much of the varietal characteristics when it’s finally bottled and sold.

So getting too hung up on the grape characteristics won’t help that much.

What’s important to know is which grapes are used to create each style of wine.

This is by far the easiest and hardest part to explain about Madeira wine. Madeira is often made as a monovarietal, which due to legislation, determines the wine’s sweetness level. Below we’ve listed the sugar levels associated with each grape.

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