Why it matters
The producer
At Quinta Grande, Henriques & Henriques farms 10 terraced hectares on Madeira, the single largest vineyard holding on the island. That fact matters for a fortified wine region where most producers have traditionally worked with bought-in grapes rather than their own land. Henriques & Henriques owns its vines, controls its fruit, and bottles wines entirely from estate-grown grapes, a practice the firm established as far back as 1925.
Founded in 1850 by João Joaquim Gonçalves Henriques, the firm is today the largest independent producer and shipper of Madeira. Humberto Jardim serves as CEO and winemaker. The age-statement varietal wines, including the Terrantez 20 Year Old and Verdelho 15 Year Old, are always 100% of the stated grape variety, drawn from stocks that well exceed the minimum age requirement.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Madeira is a Portuguese island in the Atlantic, and its wines carry the stamp of that isolation: high acidity, extended oxidative ageing in cask, and a complexity built over decades rather than years. The island's volcanic terrain and steep Atlantic slopes create difficult farming conditions, which is why most producers have historically relied on purchased grapes from small growers. Henriques & Henriques stands apart as the only producer with extensive vineyard holdings on the island.
The Quinta Grande vineyard, replanted in 1995, gives the firm direct control over fruit quality and farming decisions across all 10 terraced hectares.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The 10 terraced hectares at Quinta Grande represent the broadest private vineyard foothold on Madeira. The site was replanted in 1995 and the terraced layout reflects the island's steep topography, where flat ground is scarce and machine access is limited.
In the cellar, the age-statement wines age in cask using the canteiro method, in which barrels are placed in warm upper-floor lodges and aged by natural temperature variation rather than heated estufagem tanks. The Terrantez 20 Year Old comes from a blend of five casks laid down in canteiro in the 1980s. The Verdelho 15 Year Old ferments in traditional lagares with whole-cluster processing, skin maceration, and native yeasts, then ages in canteiro for at least 15 years.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range is built around the classic Madeira grape varieties, each bottled as a single-varietal age statement. Terrantez is a rare variety on the island, and the 20 Year Old is the firm's most distinctive bottling: a meio seco (medium-dry) wine aged in canteiro since the 1980s, with 74.7 g/l residual sugar balanced by 7.1 g/l total acidity and 20.42% ABV. The result sits between the drier Sercial style and the fuller Bual, with enough acidity to keep the sweetness from dominating.
The Verdelho 15 Year Old is medium-dry by Madeira convention, with 71.9 g/l residual sugar, 6.0 g/l total acidity, and 20.0% ABV. The Malvasia (Malmsey) style, represented by the 2001 vintage wine, moves toward the sweeter end of the range, with dark chocolate, molasses, and an attractive saltiness kept lean by high acidity, never cloying.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Begin with the Verdelho 15 Year Old. It is the grape variety most closely associated with medium-dry Madeira, aged for a minimum of 15 years in canteiro, fermented in traditional lagares with native yeasts and skin maceration. The deep amber colour and the green-olive rim in the glass come directly from that ageing time. On the palate, 71.9 g/l of residual sugar sits against 6.0 g/l of acidity, which keeps the wine dry-feeling and focused. The finish is clean, mineral, and persistent. It shows the canteiro method clearly: oxidative, complex, built for decades rather than years, with nothing of the caramel heaviness that estufagem ageing can produce.