John Cossart, head of the Madeira house Henriques & Henriques, was the last Englishman still fully involved in the wine trade in Madeira. Thanks to his unrivalled grasp of the Madeira wine trade, its tortuous relationships and the complexities of the Madeira-making process, he made an invaluable contribution to the revival of one of the world’s most distinctive and indestructibly long-lived wines. That this is corroborated by long-standing arch-rivals such as the Madeira Wine Company, an amalgam of historic names of Cossart Gordon, Blandy, Leacock and Miles and Rutherford, is an acknowledgment of his gravitas as one of Madeira’s greatest ambassadors.

Though he was born on Portugal’s volcanic island outpost, John Cossart’s fluent Portuguese was always spoken with a self-consciously English accent as if he’d just undergone a crash course in Portuguese using audio tapes. After an education at Downside, he worked in London for Shell, meeting his wife, Harriet in 1969. He also helped her to look after her family estate at Uppark in Petersfield. He soon found himself travelling regularly to Madeira as he became increasingly involved in his father Peter’s business, which was established in 1850 by João Henriques at the legendary Quinta do Serrado in Câmara da Lobos. After the traumas of the death of his eldest son Charlie and divorce, he settled in Madeira in 1997, where he remained, in blue blazer and old school tie, as English as steak and kidney pudding.

Historically, Madeira’s first wines were the naturally acidic, young vintage wines made from drier sercial and verdelho, and sweeter bual and malvasia (malmsey) and fortified with spirit. By completing a return sea journey across the tropics, they were found not only to have survived but to have become richer and more concentrated thanks to the passage of time and the equatorial climate. This vinho da roda became much sought after and Madeira producers traditionally used the canteiro process, oak ageing in warm, humid lodges, that is, to recreate the process for their best wines.

Aware that time in a fast-moving world was at a premium, John Cossart adapted the established hothouse production process known as estufagem to H&H’s commercial requirements, steam-heating H&H’s Madeiras slowly and gently to prevent the occurrence of the burned flavours found in other products and allow Madeira ‘to hang on a fine spine of acidity’. An ‘apologist’ for a hothouse system that remains controversial because of its artificial nature, he held a hilarious Madeira tasting for journalists in a London sauna. The company also produced great Madeiras using the canteiro system, including such gems as a complex, rich, cinnamon-spicy 1934 Verdelho, the legendary, intensely nutty Solera Century 1900 Malmsey and fabulous, otherwordly Reserve Sercial, bottled in 1965 from a demijohn dating from before 1850.

His father died in 1991, and after taking over the reins of the business, John Cossart built a new vinification plant at Ribeira do Escrivão, expanding the company’s vineyard holdings by developing the vineyard first planted by his father in the steeply terraced, verdant hills at Quinta Grande above H&H’s production facility. It was the first vineyard on the island to be mechanised, remains, at 25 acres, the biggest, and is owned by H&H, which is unusual as all other shippers are dependant for their source of grapes on the island’s 1300-odd growers. Contracts are scarce in this sub-tropical Portuguese outpost, but John Cossart’s relationships with growers, bottlers and staff were strong even if he himself said ‘you couldn’t stick two islanders together with a ton of superglue’.

A courteous, kind and deeply religious man, John Cossart was immensely proud of his family’s long connection with Madeira dating back to the 1800s. His main interests were his children, H&H, and his house, home to eight highly vocal Madeira dogs, along with the garden and orchard in which he spent much time tending plants and flowers and planting his favourite vegetables. As he used to point out himself: ‘everything grows on Madeira; it’s a floating manure heap’. Of Madeira ‘s wine, he was modest about his own achievements. He once said wistfully: ‘If I was asked who I most envied in the wine world, I’d say it’s producers who have a great demand for their product and we don’t’. The revival may be gradual but a growing demand for Madeira is a legacy of which John Cossart could be justifiably proud.

John Cossart, born Funchal, Madeira, 25 February 1945, died 27 February 2008. Married: Harriet Meades-Featherstonhaugh, 21 June 1969, divorced 16 December 1997. Three children, Charlie (who died nine years ago), Maria and Edward. Two grandchildren, Alfred and Pearl.