All producers
Henriques & Henriques
Madeira, Portugal2 wines4.3 avg
Câmara de Lobos, Madeira. Founded 1850. The only major Madeira house with significant estate vineyards of its own (~10 ha at Quinta Grande) and keeper of roughly two-thirds of all Terrantez vines left on the island.
Henriques & Henriques was founded in 1850 by João Gonçalves Henriques, in Câmara de Lobos on Madeira's south coast. After his death in 1912 his sons João Joaquim and Francisco Eduardo took over - that is where the doubled name comes from - and began exporting under the family's own label in 1925, instead of supplying other shippers as most Madeira houses still did. John Cossart led the modernisation through the late twentieth century; today the house is run by Humberto Jardim (managing director and winemaker) and Luís Pereira (production director). Majority ownership now sits with the La Martiniquaise group, whose Portuguese arm (renamed Granvinhos in 2023) also controls Justino's, but Henriques & Henriques continues to operate as its own house with its own cellars and vineyards.
The vineyard story is what sets the place apart. Most Madeira houses buy in every grape; Henriques & Henriques farms a terraced 10.3-hectare estate at Quinta Grande at 600-750 metres, planted mostly to Verdelho (replanted 1995), plus a separate 1.3-hectare Terrantez parcel at Sítio das Preces in Ribeira de Caixa - which, remarkably, accounts for about two-thirds of the Terrantez still planted on Madeira. Boal, Malvasia and Sercial come partly from the estate and partly from long-standing contract growers; Tinta Negra, for the entry-level and five-year wines, is sourced from growers. Aging for the serious wines is by canteiro - casks stacked in warm attic cellars over years - never by estufa.
The current range runs from entry Rainwater / Full Rich at three and five years, through 10 Year Old and 15 Year Old bottlings of each noble variety, to the 20 Year Old Terrantez and 20 Year Old Malvasia, a rolling series of Single-Harvest Colheitas (recent releases include Sercial 2001, Verdelho 2007, Boal 1997 and 2000, Malvasia 2001), and vintage Frasqueira going back to 1934 - plus legendary solera and 18th-century bottlings held back in the cellars. In any honest ranking of Madeira producers, Henriques & Henriques sits with Barbeito, Blandy's, D'Oliveiras and Justino's at the top of the list, with the estate-vineyard base and the Terrantez custodianship as its distinctive signatures.
