History
D’Oliveira is one of the greatest of the classic Madeira shippers, and one of the few to survive from the pre-phylloxera era.
Of all the Madeira wine shippers that survive today, perhaps only the Madeira Wine Company has as rich a history as the firm of Pereira D’Oliveira.
The original company, João Pereira D’Oliveira & Filhos, was founded in the 1880s by a major landowner and grower in São Martinho, João Pereira D'Oliveira. But early in the next century, D’Oliveira began to grow through mar- riage and by acquiring other companies.
The first expansion came in the early 1930s, when João Pereira’s grandson, Agostinho, mar- ried into the Camacho family, adding the assets of the João Joaquim Camacho & Sons wine ex- porting firm.
AUGUSTO CUNHA
Some decades before, the Camachos had taken over an important 19th century producer, Julio Augusto Cunha & Sons, founded in 1820 and well-known in the 19th century for its fine vin- tage wines.
In his 1877 book on Madeira, Henry Vizetelly wrote about Cunha: “Senhor Cunha, who ships principally to England, Germany, and Russia, has a series of particularly fine Verdelhos, rang- ing from 1857 to 1873; some dry delicate Ser- cials, more than a quarter of a century old; a rich pungent Bual, already in its thirtieth year ... with a Malmsey something like five-and-twenty years of age, luscious and refined, and beauti- fully rounded.”
For the first time, D’Oliveira purchased another producer in the 1980s, with the acquisition of Vasco Luis Pereira, another wine exporter that occupied a building adjoining Cunha in the cen- ter of Funchal. Vasco Luis Pereira had founded his small company in the 1920s, but his son had no interest in continuing in the business when his father died in the early 1980s.
ADEGAS DO TORREÃO
And then in the early 2000s, Agostinho’s sons, Aníbal and Luis, bought the remains of Adegas Torreão, an importantpartidista located near the his- toric Hinton Torreão sugar works in Funchal.
The man behind Adegas Tor- reão was Vasco Loja, who had built Torreão into one of the island’s most powerful wine compa- nies, supplying large amounts of wine to the is- land’s remaining shippers. But after his death, his children chose not to continue his work. D’Oliveira purchased the company’s Art Deco lodge along with the remaining wine in barrel, including such treasures as a 1971 Terrantez, a 1928 Sercial and Torreão’s famous 1927 Bastardo.
D’Oliveira’s latest acquisition came in 2013, when it purchased Artur de Barros e Sousa, a small and very traditional producer, next door to D’Oliveira’s lodge on the rua dos Ferreiros. As with the purchase of Torreão, Barros e Sousa still had stocks of Madeira in barrel, which D’O- liveira will, with time, bottle and release.
THE MODERN ERA
By any measure, the past fifty years must be con- sidered D’Oliveira’s Golden Age. Until the 1970s, the estate didn’t export, but was content to sell wine exclusively on the island. The small scale of its business at that time undoubtedly ex- plains why D’Oliveira has such astonishing stocks of old wine today.
But from 1968 on, under the guidance of João Pereira D’Oliveira’s great-grandsons, Aníbal and Luis, the firm entered a new era, where it would become world-famous for its great Madeiras.
Sadly, Aníbal D’Oliveira passed away during 2017, leaving his brother Luis and his son Felipe to insure that this would remain one of the world’s great family wine businesses.
Immensely Powerful Wines
Over the years, it has been our privilege to take part in several comprehensive tastings of D’Oliveira vintages. There is a definite “house style” to these wines. They have 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.
No wonder others in the Madeira trade consider these to be such supreme examples of classic Madeira. In fact, during the 1970s and 1980s, when the Madeira Wine Co. (Blandy’s, Cossart, etc.) was beginning to run low on old vintages to sell, it was to D’Oliveira that they turned.
Like Barbeito, D’Oliveira believes that Madeiras age best in cask. Consequently, all of its vintages are kept in wood, and only enough is bottled to meet short-term needs.