Grape Guide
Sercial
WhiteSercial is a late-ripening white variety with severe natural acidity, best known as the grape behind the lightest and driest of the classic Madeira wines. On the Portuguese mainland it goes by Esgana Cão, 'dog strangler', and plays a small acidifying role in Bucelas, the Minho and the Douro.
Key Characteristics
- Ripens very late, often the last of the Madeira varieties to be picked
- Large bunches of thin-skinned berries that are prone to rot
- Reasonably resistant to powdery and downy mildew
- Naturally low in sugar and very high in acidity, giving base wines of roughly 11% alcohol before fortification
- Mainland Esgana Cão and island Sercial are the same variety; it is distinct from Cerceal Branco and from Sercialinho
Typical Flavors
Major Regions
Madeira (Jardim da Serra, São Vicente, Porto Moniz) · Bucelas · Minho · Douro · Dão · Languedoc (Mas de Daumas Gassac)
Also Known As
Esgana Cão (Bucelas · mainland Portugal) · Esgana (Portugal) · Esganoso (Minho)
Overview
Sercial is defined by acidity. The berries ripen late and slowly, keeping sugar modest and acid high, so unfortified wine from the grape is tart, lean and sharply edged, which explains the mainland name Esgana Cão, 'dog strangler'. It is rarely bottled as a still wine for its own sake. Its real value is as the raw material for Madeira, where acid, rather than fruit or weight, is what carries a wine through decades in cask and glass. In Madeira the name Sercial also designates a style: the driest and lightest of the four traditional types, alongside Verdelho, Bual and Malmsey. A bottle labelled Sercial must contain at least 85% of the variety under European labelling rules. Young examples smell of lemon, green apple and crushed almond; with age they take on hazelnut, orange peel, smoke, toasted bread and a saline, almost savoury edge. Because the acidity is so high, the wines show little sweetness even when some residual sugar is present, and they tend to be the slowest of the Madeira styles to open up. On the mainland the variety is a small-scale blending component valued for freshness.
Origins & History
Sercial is thought to come from the mainland, most probably the area around Bucelas north of Lisbon, where it was long grown as Esgana Cão. A northern origin in the Douro has also been suggested. Cuttings were taken to Madeira, where the variety acquired the name Sercial, and it became one of the island's most respected cultivars. The Portuguese ampelographic collection and the Vitis International Variety Catalogue list it under number 11497. The variety has no known parents. DNA comparisons have linked it closely to other Portuguese varieties, among them Alvarelhão, Ramisco and Trincadeira, though the exact nature of those relationships has not been spelled out. An old idea that Sercial came from the Rhine, or was a form of Riesling, has been refuted. The name is easily confused with several unrelated or only loosely related grapes: Cerceal Branco (also called Cercial), a different white of Dão and Bairrada; Sercialinho, a separate variety whose parentage was shown by DNA not to involve Sercial; and Ondenc, a southwestern French grape that was grown in Australia under the name Sercial for reasons that remain unclear. Sercial's area on Madeira has shrunk markedly since phylloxera and the shift towards more productive varieties, and it remains a rarity.
Viticultural Characteristics
Sercial forms large bunches of medium-sized berries with thin skins, which leaves it exposed to bunch rot in damp seasons. It buds and ripens late, and on Madeira's high southern vineyards the harvest can run into the first week of October, well after the other noble varieties. Slow ripening is the key to its profile: sugar accumulates gradually while acidity remains very high. The variety shows reasonable resistance to powdery and downy mildew, a useful trait in Madeira's humid, Atlantic-influenced climate. Vines are grown on the island's steep volcanic terraces, known as poios, and the best sites are cool, whether through altitude on the south slopes or exposure on the north coast. Yields are modest by island standards, and its low sugar levels, with base wines of about 11% alcohol, mean it is rarely grown for volume.
Wine Styles & Characteristics
On Madeira, Sercial is vinified for the driest end of the fortified range. Fermentation is arrested with grape spirit late, after most of the sugar has been consumed, leaving a wine with little residual sweetness; the final strength is typically close to 19 or 20% alcohol. The best bottlings are aged in cask by the canteiro method, in warm lofts, for years or decades, while cheaper wines are heated in tanks by estufagem. Labelled categories run from the three-year-old and five-year-old blends through 10 and 15 year old wines to the single-vintage tiers: colheita, which needs a minimum of five years, and frasqueira, aged at least 20 years in cask. Aged Sercial is austere, nervy and extremely long-lived, with notes of citrus peel, nuts, smoke and sea spray. On the mainland, Esgana Cão is used for acidity in white blends, and occasionally appears on its own as a bone-dry, mineral still white. A tiny quantity is used in Languedoc for both dry and late-harvest sweet whites.