🏷️ Estufagem

Estufagem is the way Madeira is made in Portugal. The wine is heated in large vats to quickly gain the flavour of an old wine. Madeira is a fortified wine from the island of Madeira in the Atlantic.

Usually the wine is held at 45 to 50 degrees for at least three months. The heating resembles what happened on old ships, when barrels of wine were carried through the hot tropics and the wine took on a special flavour. Now the effect is made artificially, in heated tanks called estufas.

Estufagem is used for simpler wines. Fine Madeiras are aged naturally, in attics under roofs where the sun's warmth reaches, a method called canteiro. It takes years and even decades.

Heating gives Madeira its typical notes of caramel, nuts and dried fruit. That is why Madeira differs from other wines: it does not fear heat or oxidation, and an opened bottle keeps for a long time.