Henriques & Henriques – Vinhos, S.A.
Phone:
+351 291 941 551
Email:
Website:
Henriques and Henriques, or H&H, was the first fortified wine producer we visited on our trip to Madeira Island. At the risk of sounding ignorant, we will confess that the only reason for H&H getting to the top of our list was its location outside Funchal city.
Most Madeira wine producers have their tasting rooms in the capital of Madeira, Funchal. All of them tend to be located in the downtown core of Funchal. While an interesting city to visit, Funchal also has a parking scarcity. In our opinion, if you can avoid looking for parking in Funchal, you should!
Unlike those wineries, H&H is located in the town of Câmara de Lobos. It comes with easy on the street parking that does not require you to test the capabilities of your rental car on Madeiran’s steep mountainous roads. A clear winner in our books.
This was how a mundane matter of parking led us to visit Madeira’s most time-honored and respected winery.
A bit of history
H&H was founded in 1850 by João Joaquim Gonçalves Henriques, whose family had well-established roots in Câmara de Lobos. In 1912 his sons formed a partnership. That’s how Henriques & Henriques was created. Thirteen years after being formed, H&H started exporting their own wines rather than selling them to other exporters in bulk. When the last of Henriques passed away with no hires, the ownership of the company went to his three friends and partners. For the longest time, it was the only Madeira winery with its own private vineyards. While H&H no longer holds that title, it continues to be the owner of the largest privately owned vineyard on the island. In 1992, already under new ownership, H&H invested heavily in the construction of the new winemaking facilities in Quinta Grande and a new head office complete with a tasting room and a storefront in Câmara de Lobos.
Winery visit
Our first impression when we arrived at the H&H location was that we must have gotten their head office address instead of the wine lodge. From the street, the place looked like a multi-tenant office and a factory building in one.
We went inside to see if someone could help us with the correct address and directions to the wine lodge. Surprisingly there was no reception or receptionist to greet or guide us. As a matter of fact, there was no one to make sure that we did not go to the wrong floor, say, to the one with various sizes of stainless-steel tanks for wine storage and blending. And that’s what we did. Again, there was no one there to chase us away and tell us to mind our business. The building felt totally abandoned.
Our next try was the second floor and, bingo, we found people! Or rather, we found a winery worker siphoning wine from one of the barrels and a single couple sitting at the table quietly enjoying their rounds of H&H Madeira. One other employee was pulling a double duty of a wine shop and wine tasting room attendant. Even so, the inside looked inviting. We went in.
Like many things in this winery, its wine tasting room is doing double duty. It has large windows with good sun exposure to function as a wine-aging room. The area in the middle of this room is used for wine tasting. There are small imitation barrels filled with 3 years old blends lining up the room entry. Empty glasses sitting next to each of these barrels are readily available for visitors interested in trying one or all of these creations. We could have picked a glass and gone for wine self-serve.
It seemed to be awfully wrong to be helping ourselves to free booze. We decided to wait for the attendant to help us. And wait, we did!
At H&H, unless the patron specifies otherwise, a wine tasting request is interpreted as a request for a FREE wine tasting. Yup, you’ve got that right. H&H has FREE wine tasting. And no, it is not tasting of any wine. If you do not specify your choice, and we are pretty confident they won’t ask you, the wine tasting you get will be a free tasting of the H&H 3 years old blends. Considering the high alcohol content of Madeira wines, you may want to be selective about your tasting choices. Unless, of course, you are into free booze.
If you want to taste anything other than 3 years old blends, there’s a non-refundable fee you have to pay. Ranging from 2.50€ to 3.50€, H&H fees for tasting 5, 10, and 15 years old blends are more symbolic than anything else. Their 20 years old blends and select single-harvest wines will cost you 5.50€ per tasting. However, if you want to taste their Frasqueiras or the much-coveted Soleras, be prepared to pay serious money. How serious? A Single tasting of Founders Solera will cost you 75€ a tasting. Their 1927 Bastardo comes at 65€ per single tasting, Terrantez from 1954 harvest comes at 36€ per tasting, and the youngest of them all, the 1997 Boal, will set you back just 9€ per tasting.
Henriques & Henriques Wines
Over the years, H&H has created and acquired several brands. Today its brands include Belem’s Madeira Wine, Carmo Vinhos, Veiga France Vinhos, Casa dos Vinhos da Madeira, António Eduardo Henriques, and Silva Vinhos. Some of these, like the Silva Vinhos brand, belonged to winemakers who went out of business, and ended up selling their brands to H&H. Others, like António Eduardo Henriques, are the result of the company consolidation.
Then there are brand names, like Belem’s Madeira Wine, which have been associated with H&H since their beginning. Some of these brands are used to primarily market H&H’s wines in a specific country. For example, the Casa dos Vinhos brand is used exclusively to market H&H in two Canadian provinces, Ontario and British Columbia.
At the H&H tasting room location, you can taste 3 to 50 years old blends and single harvest Colheitas and Fresqueiras. If money is not an issue, you can also taste H&H’s Soleira blends and wines from the private Henriques family reserve, known as Very Old Reserve wines. An interesting tidbit about the Very Old Reserve wines – even though nobody knows their true age, these wines were already considered very old when João Joaquim founded his company in 1850. The prevailing opinion is that Very Old Reserve wines are at least 200 years old. Soleira blends are much coveted, in part because these were created using an approach that is no longer in use today. Some may say that drinking Soleira is like consuming Madeira’s historic past.
Unlike all other wineries we visited, H&H has an extra dry Madeira on its list. It is the only wine producer that elevated Tinta Negra, the generally poorly regarded workhorse grape, to a noble grape status. The way H&H achieved that is by producing a 50 years old Tinta Negra blend. It is available for purchase in the winery at 200€ or as a wine tasting at 25€ per taste.
The table below summarizes H&H blended wines at the time of our visit to the winery.
When it comes to the aging methods used by the winery, except for the 3 years old Tinta Negra blends, H&H uses the traditional canteiro process to age their wine.
Bottom Line
Is this winery worth your visit? Our answer, it depends! In our opinion, it is not your typical Madeira winery tasting room. Their decor harkens back to the 80s. It takes their tasting room attendants forever to get to you. Some may say they could care less if you are there or not. And yes, they do not do tours. It was a curious experience to taste their wines amongst barrels and workers who were, matter-of-factly, going about their daily jobs while completely ignoring our presence.
When we got their attention, our tasting room attendant was very knowledgeable about the wines, the winery, and their wine aging process. Thanks to her, we learned curious facts that otherwise we would have no way of learning. For example, we learned that H&H sends its used wine barrels to cognac manufacturers to help infuse their finished product with the Madeira wine flavor. Cognac manufacturers, in turn, send their used barrels to H&H to be used for aging Madeira wines. No wonder we felt a faint aroma of cognac when tasting Madeira!
We appreciated an opportunity to try the same wine served during the Spanish Royal visit to the UK in 2017. At 3.50€ per tasting, you do not have to break the bank to do it.
It was gratifying to see that tasting of the 19th-century vintages and of the famed Solera is available not just in the posh, members-only clubs. Anyone who feels compelled and can afford to spend 75€ per tasting is welcome to try these at H&H’s wine tasting room in Câmara de Lobos.
Do you like to be pampered and catered to? If yes, you probably will not enjoy your visit. Do you want to taste excellent wines that rightfully serve as a quality benchmark? Are you willing to poke and prod the staff to get you what you need? If the answer to these questions is “yes”, you should plan a visit.