Barbeito's single-cask gems

Most wine producers make more or less the same wines each year, give or take the odd new addition to the range, but Ricardo Diogo Vasconcelos de Freitas (pictured above) of Barbeito on the island of Madeira is an exception. Barbeito have a basic range of three-, five- and 10-year-old wines and Diogo admits ‘I can make a five-year-old wine in 10 minutes thanks to my tasting experience and a computer’, but adds, ‘making a 40-year-old wine is quite different.’

The wines that really excite him vary enormously from...