Madeira Wine

Madeira is a fortified wine made on the Portuguese island of the same name in the North Atlantic, produced in styles ranging from dry, used as an aperitif, to sweet dessert wines. Its defining trait is deliberate oxidation through heat and aging, using either the estufagem process, in which younger wines are artificially warmed, or the slower canteiro method, in which premium wines age in barrels relying only on natural warehouse warmth. The style is said to have developed during the Age of Exploration around the fifteenth century, after merchants noticed that the heat wine experienced on long sea voyages to the East Indies improved rather than spoiled it, leading producers to recreate the effect deliberately on land. Production reached a golden age in the eighteenth century, when American colonies are said to have consumed about 95 percent of output, and the wine is classified today into four noble styles by grape and sweetness, from the sweetest Malvasia through Bual and Verdelho to the driest, Sercial.