Maderia

The first day on our Olives and Old Towns cruise was a day at sea which was a great way to familiarise ourselves with Marella Explorer, our second day was in Maderia. 

Funchal is the capital of this Atlantic island and a beautiful location to dock. Our balcony cabin was shore side, one of my loves is being able to see ashore from our own room.

We previously visited Funchal on our Canary Island cruise. I'm not a cable car person so last time we wandered the town and visited Blandy's. This visit we decided to take one of the organised excursions inland to the Valley of the Nuns followed by a visit to the small fishing village Camara de Lobos.

The guide on the coach was brilliant, she told us all about the island and Funchal as we drove through the city. It's quite a steep place and doon got steeper with so many hairpin bends I do not know how our driver got round them. 

The view was stunning, high peaks surround a valley where nestled Curral das Freiras, the village of the nuns.

There was a steep walkway up to the highest peak, too many steps for me but Hubby walked up, I caught him coming down.

Our tour returned back down the twisty steep road, I would not have liked to drive it, before going through a tunnel to reach the village. It really was hidden in the valley with high peaks all around, it was amazing how high up we had been.

In 1462 João Ferreira and his wife Branca Dias settled here and records show the land passed to their granddaughter Branca. A few years later the land was sold to Captain-Donatorio who donated it to the Convent of Santa Clara and the area became known as the Valley of the Nuns. In the mid 1500s the nuns travelled from Funchal along the river bed to escape the French pirates who were attacking the island.

The church of Santa Clara was beautiful, quite small but highly decorated with amazing painted ceilings. Even with tourists wandering around it had a calming peaceful air, a lovely place.

Our tour's final stop was the small fishing village of Camara de Lobos. This was a favourite retreat of Winston Churchill, there's a statue of him painting the pretty harbour outside the Pestana Churchill Bay.

Everyone on our tour had a glass of Poncha, a Maderian traditional alcoholic drink. It's made from aguardente de cana (made from fermented sugarcane juice), honey, sugar and orange juice. 

It was a very unusual flavour, quite a mix of sweet and sour. It is always good to try local food and drink but I don't think I'll try this again.

We had a super day exploring more of Maderia, it's a beautiful island. The day we visited it was 18°C  with some cloud but it felt quite warm. 

One interesting fact as we cruised east from the Canary Islands to Greece was the change in sunset times ... especially as we changed our clocks twice too. 

In Maderia the sunset was 20.42 and we were still on uk summer time.

Blandy's Wine Lodge - Funchal, Maderia

On our recent visit to Maderia we spent the day in Funchal happily wandering around soaking in the island life. Nestling amongst the many buildings housing bars, shops and restaurants we discovered Blandy's, a wine shop ... or so we thought.

We are not drinkers of sherry or sweet wine so although we have tasted Maderia wine before we had not heard of Blandy's. Entering the cobbled courtyard we amazed to discover it was actually where they made their wine .. and just how old the Wine Lodge was. 

Our tour and tasting took us through the old timber buildings learning so much about the wine as we travelled through time. Surprisingly we had heard some of the names before and as we moved through this stunning old Lodge we began to appreciate how special Maderia wine is. 

It all began in 1808 when John Blandy arrived from London, he moved to Maderia because of ill health and in 1811 began trading in wine with his brothers Thomas and George. He started producing this unique wine which was soon to be known all over the world.

John Blandy bought many small holdings which became Blandy's Wine Lodges, their structure making the perfect temperature for producing Maderia wine. The Wine Lodge in Funchal had high attics with high heat and humidity where the Maderia wine is aged, a very different way of aging to wine which is kept in cool cellers.

Maderia wine is made from a variety of grapes, most of which came from mainland Portugal, although Malmsey is from Crete. The grape varieties include:

Tinta Negra     Sercial    Verdelho   Terrantez    Buel    Malvasia (Malmsey)

There was so much to learn at the Wine Lodge, it was steeped in history with so many old beams, equipment and of course barrels. The smell in the cellar room was amazing, quite a surprise as we had gone upstairs to an attic not downstairs into a cellar.

After the tour we had a tasting of two very different wines, nothing like the Maderia wine we had previously tasted which had always been quite sweet. These wines were very complex, rich in flavours and varying in style. It was whilst tasting these that Hubby remember that Nelson was supposedly brought back in a barrel of Malmsey wine ... thankfully not the one we tasted!

It was lovely sitting in at the wooden tables in the old rooms surrounded by bottles of aged Maderia Wine dating back many years. So lovely we decided to stay a while and shared a four wine tasting with a cheeseboard. Each wine was matched to a cheese although we preferred the blue cheese with the oldest wine, it certainly opened our eyes, and palates. 

And to our surprise since returning home we have seen Blandy's in quite a few supermarkets although we have yet to add one to our drinks collection. I would certainly return to Blandy's if in Funchal again, you can have a tasting without the tour and so next time we'll try a different selection - thank you Blandy's for a great afternoon of discovering Maderia Wine. 

Portuguese food and wine

Our recent holiday in Portugal was to the Algarve, a rare family holiday with our son and daughter, our first visit to Portugal which was superb in every way. There are a few photos of our villa on my other blog Aimetu's Stitching. We discovered beautiful beaches, rocky cliffs, villages, castles and of course wine and food.

Vinho Verde is a Portuguese white wine most people know as 'green wine' from its literal translation but it actually means young wine as it is only fermented for 3-6 months. Although most Vinho Verde's have a slight green hue which could represent its name it is actually the AOC for that region of Portugal. In the north west of Portugal wine has been produced here for over 2000 years and is Portugal's biggest wine producing region. 

We tried a few Vinho Verde wines whilst on holiday; at our villa, in the local bar and with dinner in Albufeira. There is a lovely crispness to this wine as well as an underlying fizz. Originally this hint of bubbles was due to the fermentation still happening in the bottle and did leave sediment. Over time the wine has become more filtered and now the 'fizz' is added by slight carbonation.  

Round of drinks in our local bar - this was my favourite Vinho Verde 

A very popular brand  - great with our BBQ
Casal Garcia

Having recently visited the Champagne region I was very keen to try Portuguese Sparkling Wine. There was quite a range in the supermarket and in all honesty we chose this one hoping it would not be too dry as our daughter prefers sweeter wine ... it was perfect, not too dry, not too sweet. Made from Bical, Cercial, Arinto and Maria Gomes grape varieties, all new to me, from the Bairrada region, this was very much enjoyed one sunny afternoon on our terrace midst the palms.

Portuguese traditional sparkling wine

Our village, Guia, is known for it's Piri Piri chicken and one restaurant in particular was very popular. It was the first to bring this spicy dish to the village in 1964. A very lively restaurant with fast service. We ordered one whole chicken Piri Piri style and one plain; it sounds a lot for four but Poruguese chickens are much smaller than here in the UK. Accompanied by Sangres beer for the chaps and Vinho Verde for the girls it was a very tasty meal; it's always good to try the locals' favourite.

Famous for bringing Piri Piri chicken to Guia

For our final night in the Algarve we dined at a traditional Portuguese restaurant. From the outside it looked like a plain building but inside was like being welcomed into a family home .... and there was so much food.

Colourful Portuguese restaurant

It was a buffet style starter, of which you could visit twice. So much choice from hot soup, seafood, mini pastries, variety of salads, deep fried vegetables, breads, meats .... such amazing food. 

Buffet selection

All so delicious

For mains I chose octopus, not something I often eat but it was perfectly cooked, delicious; it's so nice to try traditionally cooked food. Our daughter had sea bream; Hubby and our son had venison in red wine with chestnuts. All our mains were large portions and having over indulged on the amazing starters I couldn't manage all my octopus, shame I didn't know the word for 'doggy bag'!

Octopus main

The wine list was very extensive, so much choice, all Portuguese wine which made me realise we have very little choice in our purchases here. I'll certainly be looking into wines from Portugal as every bottle we tried over our week away was superb. I chose a white from Dáo for our fish (the chaps had beer), purely from knowing the region name - both our daughter and I enjoyed it and it matched my octopus really well.

Another lovely Portuguese white wine

The atmosphere, setting, food and hospitality at A Casa Do Avo was wonderful, I wish we had discovered this restaurant earlier as I would have liked to have tried a few other dishes. Complimentary port at the end of our meal made the whole experience a great last night of our Portuguese holiday.

The perfect end to our delicious meal 

A Casa do Avo

During our week a highlight for me was a visit with Hubby to Adega do Cantor which means Wine Cellar of the Singer .... the singer being a favourite of mine, Cliff Richard. I couldn't believe it when I discovered his vineyard was in walking distance of our villa, all be it a fairly long walk along country lanes along side the vines.

Adega do Cantor 

Cliff often visits the vineyard, his land being one third of the wine estate but unfortunately we missed him by a day. However I'm so glad we didn't miss the tour and tasting. Walking up the driveway lined with palm trees gave the impression of something special and maybe something different. The difference was apparent as soon as we started walking amongst the vines; some were brown and still in grape, others were green leaves and had been picked.  Another difference was the height of the vines, grown higher to help when it comes to harvest time, hand picking can be backbreaking work so higher vines are a real bonus.

Vines of many colours 

Succulent red grapes 

As I mentioned this estate is in thirds, three different locations, although close by, giving the opportunity to get the best growing conditions for the seven varieties of grape grown. Sitting under a very large sail canopy Anna gave us a very comprehensive talk about how Cliff started growing grapes, how the company progressed and where it is today .... up for sale for 6.5 million euro!

A tour of the wine making area followed, all outdoor under an extensive wooden roof. Although there was a variety of equipment the actual wine making set up was quite simple, a large press was used to produce the white grape juice and also the rose grape juice. These were then fermented in closed vats. However the red grapes were first put through a sorting machine to remove stalks and pips and although pressed they were fermented with the skins in open topped vats. Whilst fermenting the red grapes were mechanically stirred daily to prevent all the skins rising to the top and forming a crust, the open top vats allowed the carbon dioxide produced from this style of fermentation to escape. Quite a technical process, whilst we were visiting they were emptying the equipment - what a difference between the grapes going in and the waste coming out - this is spread over the vineyards to put the nutrients back into the ground - such a great idea.

Outdoor production

Vat tops ready for the next fermenting

What a lovely place to make wine 

The multi-tasking, hardworking press

Freshly picked

Reduced to this - ready to go back on the vineyard

The final part of any wine tour is of course a tasting, this was no exception and was without doubt the something special hinted at by the palm lined entrance. Held in a cave filled with barrels of maturing wine Anna guided us through four wines starting with Vina Nova Rosé ( Aragonês, Syrah). The other wines we tried were;

Vina Nova Blanco (Viognier, Verdelho,Arinto, Antáo Vaz)
Odna Nova Viognier
Vina Nova (Syrah, Aragonés, Alicante Bouschet)

My favourite was Odna Nova Viognier; a favourite grape of mine this had more depth than I have tasted before due to it being matured with oak shavings in the barrel, such a different taste to an oaked wine. All the wines were so clean and full of flavour, they are available from Well's Wines in the UK and if they have any stock left (they are no longer purchasing any) you may find some in Waitrose.

The four wines we tried 

Maturing barrels

Vida Nova signed tiles 

Every year Adega do Cantor produce a 3Q sparkling wine, the name representing the three estates. Last year's sparkling a white wine but this year a rosé and with only eight bottles left we quickly bought one to try back at our villa. It was perfect enjoyed poolside as an aperitif before our final BBQ, fully of bubbles and summer fruits but without being overly sweet.

3Q rosé

It was such a lovely afternoon in the gorgeous Portuguese sun amongst the vines enjoying great wine. My only disappointment, due to flying home and not in our car, was being unable to bring home a bottle of Cliff Richard's sparkling wine made in the traditional method and aptly named Congratulations.

Imagine my absolute delight to find it in the Duty Free, of course a bottle flew home with us and has subsequently been thoroughly enjoyed at home on my birthday- perfect, just perfect!

Cliff Richard's Congratulations