Baltimore Rainwater is part of the Historic Series, a huge hommage from The Rare Wine Company to the traditional Madeira styles consumed back in the days of the American Colonies. This bottle in particular highlights the most american of the Madeira Styles: the medium dry and almost golden colored Rainwater. It is an effort to imitate the style of the 19th-century Rainwaters, in a partnership between The Rare Wine Co. and the Madeira producer Vinhos Barbeito. As usual in high-quality Madeira wines, this one was "cooked" using the traditional and time-honored "Canteiro" method (aged in casks in the top floors of the wine cellars, where the temperature is higher, for a minimum period of two years). The back label of this bottle puts the wine into perspective: "Madeira was once the most prestigious wine in America. And the most prestigious style of Madeira was Rainwater. Rainwater took its name from its pale color and delicate texture and flavor. Yet, the origins of the style are shrouded in mistery. Som attributed it to a Savannah wine merchant after the Civil War, but that cannot be, as Rainwaters existed at least a half century earlier. Others said Rainwaters were a freak of nature. Noel Cossart credited his own firm with creating Rainwater in the 1700s, after a barrel of wine was left on a beach. Rainwater Madeira reached the pinnacle of prestige in Baltimore. In 1902, that city's greatest Madeira connoisseur, Douglas H. Thomas, called Rainwater "the highest standard". And the absence of any Rainwaters in a 1900 New York auction prompted one merchand to speculate that "Baltimore connoisseurs thought so highly of them that they bought them all up and none reached New York". ÃÅ