This wine region is mainly recognised for producing one of the most famous Portuguese fortified wines. Most wines made in Madeira are produced with the Tinta Negra Mole, Sercial, Verdelho and Malvasia grape varieties.

Madeira wine undergoes fermentation off skins, in which the grapes are directly pressed. However, when the wine is going to age for several years in wood, some companies prefer to use fermentation on skins.

Most wines are aged through a heating process that tries to reproduce the overheating Madeira wines underwent during maritime trade. The wine is placed in heated rooms, where it is subject to temperatures around 50º for a few months. Another method is to submit the wine to heat produced through hot water circulation.

Another option is the gantry, an ageing process in which brandy is added to the wine right after fermentation, being later aged in wood tanks. The wine will only be bottled after the third year of ageing. Wines thus produced are usually kept in wood for many years until they are bottled and commercialised.

Madeira wines have variable alcohol content (17 to 22%) and the sugar content can range from 0 to 150g per litre. The sugar content is controlled when alcoholic fermentation is interrupted adding vinous alcohol with at least 96% alcohol content.

There are mainly four great monovarietal Madeira wines: Sercial is dry; Verdelho, semi-dry; Boal, semi-sweet; and Malvasia has the highest sugar content of all Madeira wines.

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