1911 Madeira Miles Bual Fortificado

Description

The company that would later become Miles Madeira was originally known as Rutherford & Brown, founded on the island of Madeira in 1814. In 1856 Henry Price Miles left England with his family and arrived in Madeira. Having worked as an apprentice from the age of 12 under James Rutherford, he gained solid knowledge and experience of how the Madeira trade operated. In 1872 the Rutherfords moved to London (as Phylloxera was destroying most of Madeira’s vineyards) and started a wine‑import business at Old Trinity House on Water Lane. This led Miles to purchase the company and its shares, and later he struck a gentleman’s agreement with Rutherford that any Madeira sold by them in the UK, Scandinavia or Russia would be bought through HPMiles and Co. The Madeira Wine Company was originally an association of several Madeira‑wine producing firms that decided to join forces to strengthen their purchasing and production capacities. The association was founded in 1913. During the years of discord the family‑owned firms of Blandy’s and Leacock merged, followed immediately by a dispute involving Miles and Cossart Gordon, thereby creating the largest producer and exporter of Madeira wine. Whatever the size, maintaining the unique characteristics and style of each individual company was central to the association’s focus. By the late 1970s the interests in the Madeira Wine Company, as it had become known, had been reduced to only a handful of the original families, with the Blandy family holding the controlling stake. In 1989 the Blandy family, needing to bolster the sales and marketing side of the business, invited the Symington family from Porto, Portugal, to partner with them. This partnership has continued to the present day, allowing the Madeira Wine Company to play a leading role in developing the Madeira wine trade. The bottling year may not correspond to the image shown. (Illustrative image only.)