D'Oliveira

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Country of Origin: Portugal
Location: Funchal
People: Anibal & Luis d'Oliveira, Owners & Winemakers

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D’Oliveira is one of the greatest of the classic Madeira shippers, and one of the few to survive from the pre-phylloxera era. Founded in 1850, and an amalgamation of firms dating back to 1820, it is today housed in cellars that date from 1619. This small jewel of a company has always been owned by the D’Oliveira family, its vineyard holdings built up over time through a series of marriages with other wine producing families.

But what is really extraordinary is that D’Oliveira has held on to many of its most famous vintages, creating a unique, and irreplaceable, stock of old wines. And remarkably they are all D’Oliveira wines, not purchased from other shippers or growers. Thus, whether an 1862 Sercial or a 1922 Bual, all were produced by the D’Oliveiras and their ancestors, and generally from their own vineyards in São Martinho, one of the great viticultural sites in Madeira, lying just to the west of Funchal along the island’s south coast.

D'Olivera's house style can best be characterized by very powerful aromatics, great lushness and viscosity, incredible structure, and a tangy character that is essential to the finest wines of the 18th and 19th centuries. As is typical of the most traditional of houses, wines are kept in cask and bottled according to demand.

Media Links
Chicago Tribune: Madeira - A historic sip