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Food & Drink in the Algarve, Portugal
what to drink during your stay in the Algarve
The Wines of Portugal - Madeira
Bom Dia
Welcome to the wine article for September.
Reverting to my Portuguese wine alphabet, I thought we would take a look at - `M is for Madeira', which I was minded to do by the bout of autumnal weather I just left behind in the UK, as you might think that classic Madeira wines are perfect autumn & winter drinking. Well maybe they are! Writing this in the warm sun on my terrace on another island beginning with M (sorry!), I can recall the bad weather but treat Madeira as the wonderful island & wines it is/they are.
 Like Porto Branco (White Port) for many of us Madeira (Madeira m'dear!) is the `drink that time forgot'. But I am sure that many of you will have been there and enjoyed this old fashioned but elegant wine in the historic bodegas.
Well, what exactly is Madeira & how and why? (Deep breath!) Firstly it's a fortified wine, as is Sherry (from Andalucia and nowhere else!) and Port (from the Douro and nowhere else!) but for all that it is very different indeed to both those great and favoured genres of wine. Firstly the grapes, of which there are classically four, although these days Terrantez & Tinta Negra Mole produce a lot of wines called Madeira. We will concentrate therefore on the originals, the classics - namely Sercial, Verdelho, Bual or Boal, and Malmsey; this is also the order or scale of dryness to sweetness, or perhaps richness is a better word. Pretty much indigenous to the island and its wines, so typically Portuguese of course in that respect, although Sercial is said to be the great Riesling and you will find Verdelho in Australia too. Did the Duke of Clarence really drown in a vat of Malmsey? Answers on an email please.
 The wine gets its style partly from one aspect of its origins; the soil of the island (discovered in 1344) which is volcanic ash from the great fire that ravaged the island centuries ago.
Just departing on a tangent, which I tend to do, you will hear or read me saying, often and firmly that once your bottle of Port or Sherry is opened you must drink it, and not as is often the fashion, keep it for weeks and months and sadly sometimes years! (Message here from the Portuguese Government - drink quicker!)
However, the soil in the vineyards of Madeira, with its high sulphur and sodium content, is the reason that their wines are the exception to that rule - you can open a bottle and keep it. Like all good Madeirans, on my last visit to Funchal, I purchased a bottle of wine from my birth year (don't ask!), which I intend to open on my next big birthday, that'll be in 2010 by the way, and then have a glass from it each subsequent birthday!
 In Funchal, you can visit the wine houses such as Blandy's and have, for not many euros, a glass of very, very old Madeira and the bodegas have barrels stored of old vintages just waiting to be bottled. My birth year wine (still no comment) was itself not bottled until 1999.
What you can also see in the bodegas here are the estufagems, or steam rooms, that are unique to Madeira and its production. These heated rooms replicate the very origins of Madeira wines, which of course centuries ago, when the wines were very popular indeed, used to travel to export markets on board ships - strapped to the decks in fact, so that the wines were heated by the sun on their journeys which involved crossing the Equator.
 We can still buy excellent Madeiras in the UK High Street; good selections are available at both Majestic Wine Warehouses and at branches of Waitrose, often in handy 50 centilitre bottles. Names to watch out for - Blandy's of course and Henriques & Henriques. What a great alternative way to start or finish a meal, and sometimes during it too. A little `tempter' for another time - Madeira can be a great wine to match that wine-difficult food called Chocolate!
Once again I have been busy travelling recently and recently had the very good fortune to be able to return to one of my all-time favourite cities, Lisboa. As a guest of The Altis Park Hotel group, who also produce some excellent Tinta Roriz wines, better known to you as Rioja's famous early*-ripening Tempranillo variety (*tempra; Espanol = early) I was able to have an in-depth discussion on the Portuguese wine industry and export markets, plus getting a serious, professional viewpoint on Portuguese Wine &  Food matching, a subject you will know I feel very passionate about. My contact there, Bernardo Nobre, has recently been arranging for some of the hotel group's chef team to travel elsewhere in the world, particularly to America & Germany to show off Portugal's cuisine at its finest. My company will be looking for opportunities to offer this promotion in the U.K. in the near future, so if you are involved with, or know of, a hotel or restaurant that is looking for an unique, top event for its calendar, then please email me. Interestingly the wine estate has recently planted a 15 hectare plot of Sauvignon Blanc; fairly unique in Portugal.
Of course, you cannot be in Lisboa and not take the opportunity to trawl the streets of the Barro Alto (Old Town) in search of that incredibly inexpensive, tiny old restaurant serving typical sardinhas, etc. washed down with carafe of local(ish) Vinho Tinto. So of course, I did that (again) and thoroughly enjoyed the experience (again), even though the recommended restaurant was in fact closed for holidays (of course - it's the height of the tourist season!).
 Finally for those of you in or near the Cardiff area, do come and see us at the end of this month. The Cardiff International Arena is the venue for one of Appletree Exhibitions regional Ideal Home Shows, and having worked with this company's programme for a number of years, we will be hosting our Tutored Tasting Theatre there on both days - Saturday 30th September & Sunday 1st October. Cardiff is always one of the biggest and busiest events of the year and we anticipate full houses again in our theatre. The show is open from 10.00am on both days and we will have four tastings each day, three of which will feature an exciting range of different Portuguese wines. Once in the show itself, admission to our tastings is completely free and works on a `first come, first seated basis'. The actual tasting sessions are at 11.30, 12.45, 2.15 & 3.30 on both days. So do come and say hello, and also discover some of the wines that I have talked about over the past few months. See you there I hope.
Martin Ward Wine Educators International www.wine-educators.com
If you would like to know more about Portuguese Food and Drink, why don't you dip into our Restaurants in the Algarve section and our series of articles on Portuguese Wines and Ports. We also feature some Traditional Portuguese Recipes and a glossary of useful Portuguese food & drink words and phrases
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