the State of Play

This application presents a unique opportunity to raise awareness among various segments of island society about the importance of vinegrowers in preserving Madeira Wine Traditions.

The University of Madeira has formally submitted the request to register Madeira Wine Traditions in the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This is one of the steps required for the submission of an application to UNESCO. The preparation of the technical dossier was based on the study of the vast wealth of data on the cultural manifestation under analysis, collected by researchers from different areas of knowledge, since the beginning of the twentieth century. The fieldwork also included the collection of 72 audio interviews of individuals from the entire Madeira Wine community, among which 24 are vine growers.

Another line of action, initiated at the interview stage, was to raise awareness among vine growers of the need to be represented by a collective, namely a socio-professional association. This would allow them to take an active part in the decisions that will shape their future, being a very important step to ensure the survival of their activity.

The methodology adopted for preparing the application prioritized community participation in the heritagization process whenever possible. Thus, each of the eight companies authorized to produce Madeira Wine was asked to select and provide photographic and audiovisual material from their collections. The objective is to document the application for registration in the national inventory of ICH. This resulted in the collection of 278 photographs and 5 videos documenting the production process, from trellis to bottling. One of these companies (Madeira Wine Company) also provided copies of several documents unpublished to date, preserved in its corporate archive. These document important occurrences for the history of the cultural manifestations under analysis.

One of the most important actions carried out, as part of the preparation of the application, was its presentation to a wide range of entities, from Regional Government bodies, city councils, companies in the sector, non-profit cultural and recreational organizations, etc. The following are the meetings held with these entities and their respective dates:

We were also present at events such as EXPO MADEIRA (Barreiros Stadium, 13/07/2024), providing information about the application to visitors to the fair, at the stand of the University of Madeira.

The involvement of the community did not stop there, however. Students in the 2nd year of the undergraduate degrees Hotel Management and Management (ESTG; orientation: AJMS) and Estudos de Cultura (DLLC da FAH; orientation: NNN) presented the application and its objectives to a total of 24 local institutions, including parish councils, Casas do Povo, community centres, secondary schools, senior universities, associations with cultural and recreational purposes, etc. They are:

In each of these clarification sessions, the students asked to the audience why the respective entity should give its consent to this initiative. The ideas that came from this sharing of knowledge were then transmitted to the respective directive office of the host entities, and they were asked to provide a letter of consent, with a view to formalizing the request for registration on the ICH Representative List.

All these initiatives have in turn created the opportunity to explain personally and locally what intangible cultural heritage consists of and the representative list that UNESCO has dedicated to it. It was also possible to clarify, first-hand, the difference between this list and that of the World Heritage. Madeirans often confuse them, due to the unsuccessful application of Madeira's levadas, carried out by the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment, together with other bodies, including the Regional Directorate of Culture (which UNESCO recommended be reformulated) .

The application of the Madeira Wine Traditions is also a unique opportunity to raise awareness among the different segments of island society about the importance of vine growers in the continuity of this cultural heritage. We thus echoed the concerns expressed by many of them during the interviews, regarding the increasingly weak economic return of their effort and the low social valuation of their work. The importance of this socio-professional group was in fact one of the key ideas focused during the kick-off ceremony of the candidacy, which took place at the University of Madeira, on September 11, 2024. The auditorium was completely filled, which shows the affection that the community has for the cultural element object of the application for registration under analysis. The wide coverage of this event by the regional, national and international media has in turn given the possibility of expanding the reach of this initiative.

The public discussion of the Charter for the Safeguarding of Madeira Wine Traditions, announced on that day, was scheduled for December 14, 2024. These initiatives were important because the success of the candidacy depends, to a large extent, on the buy-in of all the living forces in the region. In addition, the panel of participants should be interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral and open to all stakeholders, starting with the vine growers. This was the reason that led us to schedule the public discussion at the Civic Center of Estreito de Câmara de Lobos, a parish self-titled "Land of Wine". The municipality of Câmara de Lobos collaborated in the organization of this event.

The participation of third parties, namely the municipalities, the Regional Government, academia and the people's houses, was aimed at highlighting the importance of this activity for the economic, social and cultural life of our region. It was a hybrid meeting, using videoconferencing tools, facilitating the participation not only of the Porto Santo community, but also of the communities of the Diaspora. Generally, these are left out of this type of procedure (as previous studies have shown), but also of importers and connoisseurs of other nationalities. All of them are part of the Madeira Wine Heritage Community, which is defined as the group of people who mobilize in favor of its viability, in the document presented this day.

This Charter, or "Charter" as it is called in UNESCO arenas, is a central element of the application. It is a kind of declaration of principles that demonstrates the commitment of the community, which proposes the nomination, to make the cultural element that it intends to inscribe viable. A first version of this document was provided, well in advance, to all the entities mentioned above, namely all the competent bodies of the Regional Government and all municipal councils, parish councils, community centres and other non-profit cultural and recreational organizations in the Autonomous Region of Madeira and beyond.

Everyone thus had the opportunity to analyse its content, request clarifications, suggest amendments or even additions. On December 14, 2024, it was possible to present a definitive document, right at the end of the meeting, which could be ratified immediately by those present, either physically or virtually. Those who did not have the possibility to participate in this event still have the possibility to consult the Charter and, if you approve its content, subscribe to it here.

We are now awaiting the assessment of the application for registration of Madeira Wine Traditions in the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage, a sine qua non condition to be able to proceed with the formalization of the application with the National Commission of UNESCO.

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