"Before all this hard work and time consuming we define the required quality grapes for wine making," as says our guide, Filipe Azevedo, assistant winemaker of MWC. "The agents of the Madeira Wine Company speak with winemakers and pick the grapes, which will later be collected and delivered in their own boxes to the cellar. On arrival, they are weighed and examined with the naked eye, but part of this work has been done by the agents. The first variety to be processed is in black ink that is collected at the beginning and end of the harvest, because it has a very large scope in terms of production. Following is the Bual and the second week of September is the time of Malvasia. The sercial is the last variety to be brought for the vine process, because it grows at high altitude, mainly in the north. Its maturation is longer and thus can only be removed from the brunches in the fourth week of September until early October. Then we made the decision to accept the consignment of grapes or not. Those accepted are forwarded to the production line which is divided between whites and reds. The grapes are processed at the production line, which will again be assessed visually, may still be some on the bottom that do not matter and those we do not passed . The approved go to the overwhelming clumsy to 100%, that is, a machine removes the grapes skeleton, called canganho then opens the skin involving the grapes without crushing the pips, to catch the juice. The mosto is then transferred to the fermentation tanks.
The variety made with black ink has a complete maceration, which involves pumping the pelicule, pulp and juice to a tank where fermentation will take place in contact with all these elements in the end we will have a much darker wine. For dry and medium dry wine, out of the overwhelming, we send the masses to press, we extract the liquid and this will be taken to cool the tank where it is fermented in the end we will have a clearer wine. For whites that leave the crushing machine, we make a contact with a pre-fermentation skin which will extract the liquid to be fermented in a cooler tank. Every hour samples are taken from all tanks, controls of the density and Baume or rather the opening of the wine. The entire fermentation process varies depending on the type of caste. The sweeter wine is lodge an average of two days, while the dry can take up to eight. The other parameter to consider is the temperature, in the white varieties we control fermentation at 18 degrees in the case of the black ink temperatures can be higher than 24 degrees Celsius. After this process, the wine is sent to the warehouse where it will be fortified, the fermentation stops here as we add 96% vinic alcohol. At that time the wine will be placed at 17 degrees of alcohol. At this stage, are collected more samples to our lab, where it is checked for proper alcohol content as I have already reference.
In the main warehouse of wines, the styles have separate tanks. We started with the clarifications, is a step that aims to separate solids which are suspended in the wine. After this cleaning, we've passed the wines for stowing, Madera's of three years, are in heated tanks, between 45 and 50 degrees Celsius for 3 months, after this procedure, the wine is left to cool to room temperature and transferred to the vats of wood. The traditional system of aging is to decant the wine, which is stored in oak casks; they act as a filter, for at least five years. Wines of 5, 10 and 15 years, will be used in harvest and for vintage. The three years wines will come out of the fermentation to be later marketed as blend.
The guantry is the next phase; there is more than one method of aging Madeira wine. All white varieties are going to decant, i.e. sercial, the Verdelho, Malvasia, the Bual, and a part of the black ink from the harvest. Roughly about 90% of production goes to the stowing and the remaining 10% for quarry. May vary, are not fixed quantities. After clarification, the wines are put on barrels where they will age at least five years. The younger ones are stored on the upper floors, in areas with higher temperatures, between 25 and 30 degrees centigrade and older are stored in the cool cellars. In the barrels starts the phase of concentration. The wine mostly evaporates one of its major components which is water and concentrate the remaining elements that confer the unique bouquet of Madeira. It is a gradual process, hence the different temperatures. "
Samples are taken each year that are sent to the laboratory. In this area several parameters are evaluated. "The tests are always performed at 20 degrees Celsius," as responsible and the chemical analyst Marisela Pontes elucidates, "is the correct way to not differentiate the results. The wine is exported all over the world and as such the temperature will vary, it is an international standard that eliminates potential errors. One of the parameters evaluated, for example, is to stipulate the mass density of the wine. The driest wines have a lower density and higher are sweeter. "
"At the same time wine are held standard tasting, essential to determine their potential for aging. This step is critical. The weight of the selection of lots lies on the principal winemaker, Francisco Albuquerque, because he decides the selected wines. The blend is a mixture of several years of one caste, between 5, 10 and 15 years, wines are cold stabilized after that filtered and marketed. The harvest and vintage are very similar. Are bottles of one year and only one caste, the differences lie in the number of years of aging. The first range from 6 to 19 years in cask, it is a newer concept with great potential that allows in short time put different wines on the market. The second ages over 20 years and has higher costs. Nectars are in small quantities that stand out for their unique characteristics. These great wines develop in the barrels, unlike vintage port wine, which is aged for two years in cask and bottle the rest of the time "concludes the assistant winemaker.
Completed all these stages of production, the Madeira Wine Institute is informed about the existence of a new batch. This regulatory institution will analyze the collected samples that are carried to a chamber where tasters will endorse their expertise. After quality assurance, the wine is bottled for the consumer. Cheers!
