Madeira | 马德拉群岛

Madeira

Madeira Island has been a wine producer for centuries, practically since Portuguese sea-farers landed there in the 15th century. As there were no traces of vines in spite of the mild climate, the first colonizers took with them some stalks of European varieties. This gave rise to Malvasia, Verdelho, Sercial, Boal and Terrantez varieties, among other less – widely used ones. These became known as the “noble varieties”, producing the finest quality Madeira wine. However, the largest section of the vineyards is currently taken by the Negra Mole, widely used in entry-level Madeira wines. Altogether, these varieties occupy around 400 ha of land.

Madeira wine is sweet, where the grape juice has been “mellowed” by adding wine alcohol and is always very acidic, allowing it to be stored for easily over 100 years. It comes in four varieties: dry (Sercial), semi-dry (Verdelho), semi-sweet (Boal) and sweet (Malvasia).

As it is an area visited by many tourists, a large part of the Madeira Wine produced is sold locally. France is the main destination, followed by Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.

The best Madeira wines are doubtless those called “Frasqueira”, wines that are stored for at least 20 years in the barrel and then two years in the bottle before they are sold; the label displays the variety and the year of harvest. As companies bottle small quantities that they have available in stock every year, it is always possible to buy a good, old Madeira wine that has been recently bottled.

Discover the list of producers in this region here.

马德拉群岛

马德拉岛酿造葡萄酒已有几个世纪了，实际上从葡萄牙航海家15世纪在那里登陆就开始了。尽管岛上气候温和，但没有葡萄树存在的痕迹，岛上的葡萄树是由一些早期移民带去的欧洲品种葡萄，他们带去了玛尔瓦西亚，韦尔德略，塞尔塞奥，博奥尔和特兰特斯等品种，还有一些更稀少的品种。它们被认为是“贵族品种”，酿造出了品质卓越的马德拉葡萄酒。但是，现在种植得最多的品种是黑皮多丽嘉，常用来酿造入门级马德拉葡萄酒。所有这些品种占据了马德拉岛400公顷的土地。
马德拉葡萄酒是一种加强葡萄酒，葡萄浆中因为添加了葡萄酒酒精而显得“闷闷的”，总是酸度非常高，因此可以很容易地就达到100年的寿命。一共有四种马德拉葡萄酒：干葡萄酒（塞尔塞奥葡萄酿造），半干葡萄酒（韦尔德略葡萄酿造），半甜葡萄酒（博奥尔葡萄酿造），甜葡萄酒（玛尔瓦西亚葡萄酿造）。
作为一个游客云集的地区，相当一部分马德拉葡萄酒在本地销售。法国是最主要的出口目的地，排在其后的是德国，日本和英国。
毫无疑问，最好的马德拉葡萄酒是所谓的“弗兰斯克拉”，这类葡萄酒在销售前至少要在木桶中成熟20年，在瓶中成熟两年，在它的酒标上要标出使用的葡萄品种和采摘年份。由于各个葡萄酒企业每年只将自己存货中的很少一部分拿来装瓶，所以人们总是有可能买到一瓶非常好的，最近才装瓶的多年陈酿马德拉。