Ana Valado
The fortified wine, madeira, is one of the calling-cards of the Portuguese island that gave the wine its name back in 1450. Appreciated down through history by figures such as Napoleon, Shakespeare and Churchill, madeira has become a symbol of distinction and nobility all around the world.
PRÉMIO went to meet one of the oldest and most prestigious estates producing and selling this fortified wine, H&H.
Located in Câmara de Lobos, just a few kilometres from Funchal, there is Henriques & Henriques (H&H), one of the oldest and most prestigious estates producing and selling madeira.
Throughout many years, the Henriques family was the largest grape producer on the island of Madeira, with the first vines planted on the orders of Prince Henry the Navigator in 1425. The family tradition became a company in 1850, founded by João Gonçalo Henriques. Following his death in 1912, a company was set up by two of his sons, Francisco Eduardo and João Joaquim Henriques, under the name that the company has retained through to current times, Henriques & Henriques.
In 1938, the then main shareholder, João Joaquim Henriques, generally known as “João de Belém”, opened up the company with Alberto Jardim, Carlos Nunes Pereira and Peter Cossart acquiring stakes.
In addition to producing and exporting, H&H stands out as the unique grower of certain very specific regional vines and that bring about grapes of extremely high quality, especially the Verdelho, and also Terrantez, which is noted for being an extremely sensitive grape and generally with very poor yields but able to produce some of the finest of wines and a particular delight when transformed into Madeira.
Despite its own level of production, H&H also needs to buy in grapes from various other growers with whom there have been close and ongoing relationships for many years.
In June 1992, major investment was put into constructing new installations in Câmara de Lobos as well as a wine making centre in Quinta Grande, enabling the company to deploy the most recent technological innovations even while maintaining the family tradition coupled with the planting of new vines in 1995. This vineyard, covering around 10 hectares in total, represents the largest continuous vineyard on the island as well as now being the first on Madeira to be mechanically tended.
In 2010, the French spirit multinational La Martiniquaise, which also owns the brands Gran Cruz (a giant in the world of port) and Justino’s (the largest producer of madeira), became a majority stakeholder in H&H, and assuming control of around 70% of the total output of madeira, while retaining Humberto Jardim as the CEO in keeping with his company management qualification and almost 27 years of accumulated experience at H&H.
It was exactly Humberto Jardim, the main guardian of the house since 2008, who took us on a tour of Henriques & Henriques, highlighting how despite the entrance of the French multinational into the capital, “H&H maintains substantial autonomy and preserves its own position, seeking in the group to leverage its expansion and growth at the internal level through investment in raising capacity, in readjusting and modernising techniques, in taking advantage of synergies with significant rationalisation of costs and as well as professionalised interventions in the company’s wine growing properties having endowed another dimension and external level of recognition to H&H.”
The H&H wines gain recognition worldwide as classical and very high quality madeiras. In addition to the broad range of wines in production, the company also maintains some extremely old wines of unrivalled qualities, highly sought after by collectors from all around the globe.
As Humberto Jardim explained, “in years we consider normal, 80% of our production goes to exports” before adding that “while madeira can be found almost anywhere in the world, the European countries that import the most madeira are the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands while, outside of Europe, it is the United States, Canada, Japan and, more recently, China”.
H&H produces and retails madeira in various different categories ranging from the entrance into this product, with only three years of ageing before heading onto many other versions differing in their lengths of maturity across 5, 10, 15, 20 and 50 years. “We produce wines from the different grapes authorised for fortified madeira, such as Malvasia, Boal, Verdelho, Sercial and Terrantez, wines with their own years of harvest, others that classify as old or very old vintages”, our host detailed. He then added that “the variety most disseminated is the Tinta Negra which produces about 85% of madeira. The varieties mentioned above, the whites account for around 15% of production”.
H&H runs two wine cellars with one located in Câmara de Lobos running wine tasting in the store and guided tours of the ageing centre. The other, for production and wine-making on Quinta Grande, also provides guided tours of the installations and vineyards as well as organised group events and lunches whether for incentive packages or for wine lovers.
In conversation with Humberto Jardim
Are the climate changes that we have experienced in recent years of concern to madeira wine producers?
Yes, there is a great deal of concern. Madeira is a very small island and any climate change may have very severe consequences for this territory, whether in terms of rises in temperature or the trend experienced recently for lower levels of average rainfall over the rainy season and concentrated into heavy and intense downpours sometimes outside of the normal season and tending to bring about changes to the agricultural ecosystem of Madeira and naturally having negative effects over the course of time.
How did the pandemic impact on the grape and wine sector, in particular at H&H, not only in terms of sales but also as regards production?
The pandemic led to the need to confine for a significant period of time and human intervention in the vineyards was correspondingly more difficult, however, despite this, there were no consequences in terms of decreases in production in 2020 nor even in the quality of the grapes received. The gravity of the consequences results from the drop in sales due to the closure of the madeira destination and consumption markets with the orientation of the companies made to supply stocks to ensure the entrance of this line of products into retail outlets which consumers were still able to visit and, naturally, also to again place an emphasis on online sales through the channels created by the importers. We also had to help the grape growers and to this end we took advantage of every possible support for such purposes, with the sector having acquired the totality of production to this end.
Has the level of uncertainty that we today experience due to the pandemic forced madeira producers to seek out new markets?
Yes, madeira has survived down through the centuries by its reinvention and adaptation to the different vicissitudes of our historical experience. This pandemic has once again driven us towards some blue-sky commercial thinking and seeking out alternatives to the comfort zone we had entered into in the years prior to the pandemic.
In your opinion, is madeira restricted to a particular consumer niche?
Undoubtedly, our total production does not exceed 4.5 million litres in keeping with the grape growing potential of an area that does not extend beyond around 470 hectares. This means that we cannot begin thinking about promoting madeira in any generic way and without defining a market segment given that we are limited by responding to a level of demand in accordance with the existing quantities and even those feasible for production. The niche market is added value and represents the path to be followed and it has to be the producers doing everything that they know best how to do to build recognition for their capacity of producing a unique, ‘premium’ and high quality product.
As we know, the wine growing area of Madeira is fairly small scale. Do you think there is much scope for madeira wine to continue growing?
Scope there is. Out of nature, I’m an optimist and I’m convinced that the path that madeira took when abolishing the export of bulk wine for bottling at the destination, which was ongoing through to 2000, had the result of the production of wine entering into the bottled at origin range and gaining a high level of quality recognition, an image that obviously still needs more time to reach the perceptions of consumers and thus to definitively open up paths into markets such as China, South Korea and Russia. If in these destinations there are leading importers catering for significant volume, then we shall have the opportunity to grow substantially and provide incentives for professional viticulture, capable of complying with the requirement of certification for the levels of quality thereby demanded.
Are there any plans to launch new H&H wines this year?
H&H is this year launching three icons of classical production, wines that were overseen by Peter Cossart, who did 53 harvests at this company, Luis Pereira who accompanied him throughout many years before taking over and having done 41 harvests and as well as by myself. We verified that the wines had evolved to an optimal point and hence the decision to bottle them. The Sercial 1928, Verdelho 1932 and Bastardo 1927 thus represent the final three wines in the “Reservas Velhíssimas” collection of H&H, dating back to the ‘20s and ‘30s of this last century. Rarities that are still available but only in very limited quantities.
Which are the most emblematic of H&H wines? Are they in demand among collectors?
There are those known as the Heavenly Quartet, wines that in 1850 were already considered classical and that were acquired by the founders of the company with antiquities already running close to two centuries. They are the Malvasia Reserva (bottled in 1964), the Grand Old Boal and Ws Boal (both bottled for the first time in 1927) and the Sercial Old Reserve. They feature in the very best auction houses and go for between three and four thousand euros per bottle.
To close, I would ask you which madeira is most appropriate to toasting the 18th anniversary of Cunha Vaz & Associados (CV&A), commemorated this very June?
For madeira, there is no 18 year old category and so I would think that such a special occasion really deserves toasting in a 50-year old Madeira Tinta Negra. However, it would also be a great honour if we were challenged to launch a wine with the date of the founding of CV&A – 2003 in order to commemorate the company reaching adulthood.
