Mateus is a brand of medium-sweet frizzante rosé wine produced in Portugal. The brand was created in 1942 and production began at the end of World War II. The wine was especially styled to appeal to the rapidly developing North American and northern European markets. Production grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s and by the late 1980s, supplemented by a white version, it accounted for over 40% of Portugal's table wine exports. At that time, worldwide sales were 3.25 million cases per year.
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Sogrape, the family company which owns the brand and which is the largest wine producer in Portugal, has more recently diversified into other areas of the Portuguese wine industry, as the popularity of its Mateus brand has declined. In the UK in 2002, the wine was re-packaged and relaunched in a deliberate ploy to capitalise on 1970s nostalgia,[1] although the wine itself had already been made less sweet and slightly more sparkling, in response to modern popular preference for slightly drier wine. The wine continues to be sold, however, in its distinctive narrow-necked, flask-shaped bottle, with unique "baroque historic mansion" label (Mateus Palace in Vila Real, Portugal) and real cork stopper.
More recently, a new variety of the wine has been marketed as "Mateus Rosé Tempranillo", a deeper shade of pink than the original, but in a clear bottle with a silver foil, aimed at wine drinkers in their twenties, especially young women.[2]
Mateus Rose was amongst the brands said to be stockpiled in the vaults of Saddam Hussein's palaces.[3]
The wine is mentioned in the lyrics of the 1973 Elton John song "Social Disease": I get juiced on mateus and just hang loose. [4]
A bottle of Mateus can be seen in the cover photograph of Graham Nash's 1973 album Wild Tales, positioned on the mantlepiece just behind Nash's his head).