Barbeito Rainwater Reserva Madeira Meio Seco (Medium Dry) 50cl Bottle

Description

Barbeito Rainwater Reserva Madeira is a particular style of medium-dry Madeira – you can read more about how it got its name here.

Barbeito Madeira was founded in 1946 by Maria Barbeito de Vasconcelos. The company passed into the hands of his daughter Dona Manuela and then onto her sons in the early 1990s. One of the most significant years in Barbeito’s history was 1991 when the company entered into a joint venture with Kinoshita International Company Ltd of Japan, a company that Barbeito already had close commercial and personal relationships with since 1967. Today Mario’s grandson, Ricardo de Freitas, runs Vinhos Barbeito. Barbeito is a very traditional canteiro style madeira and undergoes no de-acidification nor addition of caramel.

Barbeito work closely with local producers and have input with them to ensure that each harvest the grapes are harvested to the specification of winemaker Ricardo de Freitas. For the Barbeito Rainwater Reserva, grapes are sourced from various quality vineyards from Estreito de Câmara de Lobos and São Vicente. Grapes are pressed in a pneumatic press. When the desired level of sweetness is reached, in this case meio seco or medium dry, fermentation is stopped with the addition of grape alcohol (basically an un-aged brandy) with a strength of 96%.

The wines for the Barbeito Rainwater Reserva Madeira are aged in French oak casks for 5 years using the Canteiro method. For this blend wines are selected from Barbeito’s two warehouses in Funchal and Câmara de Lobos to produce a wine with a great balance of sugar and acidity. It is a blend of 80% Tinta Negra Mole and 20% Verdelho. 

No caramel is added, this wine was naturally aged in casks and bottled in its purest state. This wine was filtered and does not require decanting.