The Wines Lodges of Funchal
Tasting and Buying Vintage Madeira Wine on the Island
© Patrick David Michael Barrow
Feb 14, 2008
The island of Madeira is worth a visit for many reasons, not least its wonderful and vastly-underrated fortified wines. This article considers where the interested holidaymaker might head if they want to try them.
For the visitor to Madeira, no trip would be complete without visiting one of the capital Funchal’s wine lodges. For those not put off by the free, and often awful, glass of Madeira offered by many tourist destinations, there are many wine lodges that offer a range of superior vintage wines to taste at little or no cost.
There is something for every taste, ranging from a dry Sercial to a rich and fruity Malmsey. If you like something in between, you can try a medium-dry Verdelho or medium-rich Boal. Less well-known varieties include the medium-dry Terrantez and Bastardo and the sweeter Moscatel. All are well worth tasting, particularly at vintages of ten years or older. For a wine that is pretty much indestructible and is extremely drinkable at 250 years, they are not prohibitively expensive.
Blandy’s and D’Oliveira’s
Within five minutes walking distance of the centre of Funchal, you could go to any one of four wine lodges where you can taste and buy an impressive range of vintage and non-vintage Madeiras. At the 16th-century Adegas de São Francisco, also known as The Old Blandy Wine Lodge, you can learn how the wine is made with a 30 minute guided tour. You can also, for a price, taste a range of its vintage wines going back to 1908 in its atmospheric tasting room. Better still, take a five minute walk to the Rua Dos Ferreiros and go to the infinitely less-commercial Perreira D’Oliveira’s. The smell inside is reason enough to go there but an added bonus is that you get to try a glass of each of the main varieties, plus its sublime vintage wines (going back to 1850) absolutely free of charge. If you choose to buy some its wines, they will, for a price, ship them back to England for you, saving you the trouble of taking them through customs, which can be a nightmare. Postage typically costs about €50 for 6 bottles, taking three weeks to arrive. As for the wine, a twenty year old wine will cost about €34, a hundred year old wine about €250, and a hundred and fifty year old wine, €550. The only downside is that their English is limited.
Artur Barros e Sousa
Next door to D’Oliveira’s is one of Madeira’s smallest producers – Artur Barros e Sousa (ABS), who do not export their wines. As you enter the Dickensian atmosphere of the lodge you are treated like an old friend by the two brothers who run it and invited to wander around the winery at your own pace. Then you are given a free tasting of some of its wines. ABS shuns the technological advances used by other producers and makes their beautifully-made and inexpensive wines using the traditional canteiro system. A 20 year old Malmsey (Malvazia) will cost you about €40.
There are also other wines lodges within walking and driving distance of the centre of Funchal, including H.M. Borges, Barbeito’s, and Henriques and Henriques, and plenty of wine outlets in Funchal itself, so choice won’t be a problem. If you have any space in your luggage, then you might want to bring back some proper Madeira cake (a luscious rich honey and fruit cake) which couldn’t be more different from the so-called Madeira cakes you can buy in the UK. Flights to Funchal are now dirt-cheap, so get packing.
