History of Madeira Wine

Tracing the unique circumstances behind the development of present day Madeira wine leads us on an historical tale of mystery.

Wine making on the island of Madeira dates from the sixteenth century, but the product has not always possessed the unique blend of tastes that it does today.

A chance circumstance of history and a disobedient ship's crew lead, finally, to a discovery that bestows on Madeira wine its own particular niche in the marketplace.

Early traders would head for India, China and Japan. Their main customers being the European communities and military that was then present in Asia. Their ships carried their cargo of wine in large barrels of mahogany or oak.

Legend has it that, on one particular journey, some of the cargo was unsold and returned to Funchal.

Believing the goods to be spoilt, upon returning to his home port, the captain of the ship ordered the wine to be tipped overboard.

Thinking that to be rather wasteful, some of the sailors charged with the task, decided to undertaking a spot of sampling before disposing of the wine. To their surprise, and to the benefit of generation still unborn, the sailors found it to be of particularly good quality.

Indeed, the wine possessed a distinction of quality that was not present when it was first loaded on board at the beginning of the voyage. Obviously, something had occurred during the passage of the journey to greatly improved the palatability.

Hence, the unique qualities of Madeira wine were discovered.

For many years, it was believed that the swaying motion of the ships, as they carried their cargo across the seas, was responsible for creating this superior wine. Somehow, it was thought that the swilling about of the wine in the wooden casks produced its unique quality.

Thus, for decades, casks of wine were sent on a return sea voyage out from Funchal. The ships would set sail for the East or West Indies or venture across the equator and then back again to Funchal Port in order to aid the maturing process of their precious cargo.

Indeed, such was the customer demand for transported wines that such bottles were labelled as vinho da roda (indicating wines that have made a round trip).

However, this belief, that gently rocking the wine in its wooden cask improved its quality, was found to be false in the late eighteenth century.

But, why exactly did transporting the wine by sea considerably improve its quality?