Barbeito impressions & TNs

[Philip Harvey]

Continuing my journey through the current Barbeito portfolio, one new offering and one re-tasted as follows:


Barbeito – Malvasia Single cask 18a 1994
(1,540 x 50 cl bottled in 2004)

22.07.06
Sparkling bright amber mahogany. Furniture polish nose. Somewhat subdued toffee and caramel flavours – very grippy buy only medium weight. Again, that now familiar Barbeito grapefruit and "lockets" finish. This wine is in fact very similar in weight and flavour to the cask 81a Bual. This is nice, but perhaps not surprisingly it lacks the depth and complexity of the of the 20yr Malvasia. Having said that, it's half the price. Good.


Barbeito – 1981 Verdelho
(The Wine Press – 32.00 x 50cl – 900 bottles in 2005)

22.07.06
(See May 10th update for full tasting note). This is the real deal and IMHO, the best of the excellent current portfolio from Barbeito. For me, this wine strikes that perfect but elusive balance between:

- That lovely warm acetone nose that makes you content to just swirl and sniff a wine all night;

- Those moreish caramel and coffee flavours that means the glass never remains full long enough to fulfil 1. above; and

-The perfect amount of 'cut', grip and lift on the finish that leaves you in reverend reflection contemplating the skill of the winemaker long after the wine has been swallowed.

IMHO this is the perfect modern Madeira. Again, just a small bottling run of 150 six bottle cases of 50cl imperials and I've bought two of them - so that leaves 148.


Having now tasted all the current Barbeito offerings, I would humbly offer the following observations on the current portfolio:

Single Vintage wines: As time goes on, I feel quality can only continue to improve as more of the wines currently developing in cask spend time under Ricardo d. Freitas's excellent direction.

Single cask 'colheita' wines - Although very good, these wines do have something of an experimental feel about them. They represent good value for money though (especially the Tinta Negra Mole) and quality is high accross the board. By their very nature however, they are also very individual wines so buy a mixed tasting case first and find one you like.

10yr & 20yr Old range - Excellent quality accross the board. Generally more expensive that the colheitas but benchmark quality. All that's missing is a 10yr Verdelho.

The more (modern) Madeira I drink, the more I perceive a gap developing between those producers using estufa and adding caramel for their generic (eg 5 & 10yr bottlings) and the young guns like Barbeito who only use only canteiro and do not add caramel, even on their most basic 5yr bottlings. Again, I feel this trend can only bode well for Madeira in the future.

Now come on chaps, there must be more of us on this forum buying and drinking Madeira. Lets get those tasting notes and opinions posted.

Philip

[Andy Velebil]

Philip,

Thanks for a great post. I appreciate the summary of your impressions after tasting the whole line up. At present I don't drink enough Madeira, but that will soon change in the near future.