Port and Madeira: what the wine names mean and who certifies them

Two protected names, two regions, two institutes

Port and Madeira are both Portuguese wine names protected across the EU as designations of origin. The EU's eAmbrosia register lists "Porto" as a registered wine PDO, with Port, vinho do Porto, Port Wine, Oporto and five other forms protected alongside it, and gives its protection date as 24 December 1991.[1] It lists "Madeira" the same way, with Vinho da Madeira, Madeira Wine, Madère and other forms, and the same protection date.[2]

A PDO is the stricter of the EU's two wine labels. The European Commission says every part of production, processing and preparation must take place in the region, and for wine the grapes must come exclusively from the area where the wine is made; a wine PGI needs at least 85% of its grapes from the area.[4]

Neither name is an address. Porto is also the name of a city, but the IVDP defines Port by the Douro region, not by the city; Madeira names an island region. Each is certified by its own public institute, which publishes the rules quoted below.

Port, as the IVDP describes it

The Port and Douro Wines Institute (IVDP) was created in 1933 as the Port Wine Institute and calls itself the control and certification body for Port and Douro wines; its head office is in Peso da Régua.[5] It describes Port as a fortified wine, as defined in EU legislation, produced in the Demarcated Region of the Douro. The method it names has three steps: stopping the fermentation of the must by adding grape brandy, which it calls benefício, making up lots of wine, and ageing.[6] Its winemaking page says the proportion most often used is one part grape spirit to four parts must-wine, which leaves the wine with some sweetness and between 19% and 22% alcohol.[9]

The word benefício has a second meaning on the IVDP's own site. On the vine-culture page it is a coefficient attributed to each vineyard from its registered characteristics, part of a system in which only 26,000 hectares of the region's vines are authorised for Port.[10] The glossary gives only the first meaning, the adding of grape brandy to fermenting wine.[11]

The IVDP divides Port into two styles by how it ages.[6]

• Ruby style keeps the deep red colour and fruit of a young wine; the IVDP lists, in ascending order of quality, Ruby, Reserve, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV) and Vintage.[6]
• Tawny style is blended from wines aged for different lengths of time in cask or vat; its categories are Tawny, Tawny Reserve, Tawny with an indication of age (10, 20, 30 or 40 years) and Colheita.[6]

The special-categories page adds the rules that tell those labels apart. Vintage is from a single year, bottled two to three years after the harvest, and the IVDP calls it the only Port that ages in bottle; LBV is a single-year Ruby bottled after four to six years in wood; Colheita is a single-vintage Tawny aged in cask for at least seven years; Crusted Port must be kept in bottle for at least three years before it is sold.[7] There are also White Ports, among them a Light Dry White Port with a minimum of 16.5% alcohol, and a rosé.[6]

Two IVDP pages count Port's sweetness levels differently. The Port introduction gives four, very sweet, sweet, semi-dry and extra dry.[6] The colour-and-sweetness page gives five, adding dry, with a table of sugar ranges from under 40 grams per litre for extra dry to over 130 for very sweet.[8] For White Port alone, the introduction lists six: extra dry, dry, semi-sweet, sweet, very sweet and Lágrima.[6]

Where Port ages is a decision, not a fixed place: the IVDP says the winemaker decides each spring whether a wine will be aged in the Douro or downriver, in the bonded lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia.[9]

Madeira, as IVBAM describes it

Madeira's certifier is the Instituto do Vinho, do Bordado e do Artesanato da Madeira (IVBAM), the regional institute for wine, embroidery, handicraft and spirit drinks in the Autonomous Region of Madeira, formed in 2006 by merging the Madeira Wine Institute with the embroidery and handicraft institute.[12] The Madeira Wine Institute itself dates from 1979, and IVBAM says it is responsible for the certification and quality control of Madeira wine.[13] Its control service issues certificates of origin and the guarantee seals needed to sell Madeira wine, and approves the labels and packaging. The wine site gives the institute's address as Rua Visconde do Anadia, Funchal.[14]

IVBAM says Madeira wine is made exclusively from grapes grown in the Madeira Demarcated Region, which is made up of Madeira and Porto Santo.[12] Its wine site gives the island 732 square kilometres and the vine region about 403 hectares, on steep terraces called poios, where the harvest, between mid-August and mid-October, is still done entirely by hand.[15]

Madeira is fortified too, but IVBAM's two sites word the spirit differently. The institute's home page says fermentation is stopped with "álcool neutro a 96% vol.", neutral alcohol.[12] The vinification page on its wine site says "álcool vínico a 96% vol.", wine alcohol.[16] Neither says grape brandy, the term the IVDP uses for Port. The home page puts Madeira at 17% to 22% alcohol.[12]

The step that sets Madeira apart is ageing, by one of two methods.[16]

• Estufagem: the wine is heated in stainless-steel tanks at 45 to 50 °C for at least three months, rests for at least 90 days, and may not be bottled and sold before 31 October of the second year after the harvest; IVBAM says these are mostly blended wines.[16] Its history page says the method was introduced in the 18th century.[19]
• Canteiro: the wine ages in casks, usually on the upper floors of the warehouses, where it is warmer, for at least two years, and may be sold only after at least three years counted from 1 January after the harvest.[16]

On the label, IVBAM says Madeira cannot be bottled under three years old, so a bottle with no age statement has at least three years; age indications run from 5 to 50 and more than 50 years, and a Colheita, with its harvest year, needs at least five years in wood.[17] Sweetness comes in four types, dry, medium dry, medium sweet and sweet, chosen by when fermentation is stopped.[16] The types page sets them by Baumé degree, and its bands overlap: dry is under 1.5°, medium dry between 1° and 2.5°, and the term extra dry may be used at 0.5° or below. The page marks its sugar table as indicative values only.[17] The varieties IVBAM names as most used are Sercial, Verdelho, Boal, Malvasia, Terrantez and Tinta Negra.[18]

The differences at a glance

Same place names, other protected wines

The two regions make other protected wines, and the register keeps the names apart. eAmbrosia lists Douro as a separate wine PDO and Duriense as a wine PGI for the Douro, and Madeirense (PDO) and Terras Madeirenses (PGI) for Madeira; it also lists spirit-drink GIs for Aguardente de Vinho Douro, Rum da Madeira and Poncha da Madeira.[3] IVBAM's remit covers those Madeira spirits as well as the wine.[12]

Some Portuguese wine PDOs share a name with a town on a traveller's route: the register lists Lagos and Óbidos as wine PDOs and Lisboa as a wine PGI.[3] A designation names a wine area set out in its specification, which XTOUR has not read; it does not say the wine was made in the town of that name.

Where to go next

How the Douro region is organised, and what the IVDP's visiting pages offer, is in the Douro Demarcated Region, as the IVDP describes it; which side of the river the Port lodges stand on is in Porto or Vila Nova de Gaia: what is in which city. For Madeira as a base, see Funchal and Funchal as a Madeira base.

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR names no producer, lodge, estate or shop and does not rate wines. It has not read the product specifications behind either PDO, so it does not state their exact geographical areas beyond what the institutes say. It does not publish prices, tasting times, visit hours or booking terms for any lodge or institute.