When folk come to our little house they nearly always tell us that we have a lovely view. “Shucks,” I say, “everybody’s got one of those.”

Not entirely true, of [...]]]>
Today’s guest post is kindly provided by Dogoyaro, who went to investigate the new Encosta da Cesta wine bodega in the North of Portugal.

When folk come to our little house they nearly always tell us that we have a lovely view. “Shucks,” I say, “everybody’s got one of those.”

Not entirely true, of course, but in this area it’s either up or down, and views, good and bad, come with the territory.

Now, as any fule no….if you have a pleasant view it’s only a matter of time before someone starts ruining it. Our view used to be, some twenty odd years ago, relatively pristine but, over time, houses, sheds, (probably without planning permission)…have detracted from its former state. New electricity pylons string their expensive threads across the landscape, reminding one of Japanese beauty spots….festooned with cables every whichway.

But, of course, this is progress (and we surely do need some in the long neglected North) – one must be grateful and accept the occasional eyesore for the greater good…as if one had any alternative.

However, a few months ago, I noticed some building activity in the valley about seven hundred meters away & it was clear that something big was afoot. Within a few days, a small aircraft hangar had risen from its foundations, inevitably drawing the eye to one of the ugliest excrescences to be seen from our eerie….on asking what purpose my new eyesore would serve, a neighbor pointed at it and said “Cesta”…ye gods, a basket factory…oh untrammeled joy!

I had though, missed the neighbor’s words before Cesta. They were “Encosta da Cesta” and my neighbor, making drinking motions, was indicating Plonk. Our little village, Oleiros, near Ponte da Barca has its own Winery!

Encosta da Cesta Bodega

The other day, after waiting for some months for them to get their act together, I paid them a visit to find out what they had to offer.

The aircraft hangar contained state-of-the-art equipment of polished steel…bottling plant etc. and was quite impressive…no foot stomping here & no beetles in your bottles.

The boss wasn’t there but a helpful guy answered my few questions. They produce DOC Vinho Verde, red (Vinhão) & white (Loureiro) in two qualities & he proffered me a glass of the (lower) white which was certainly drinkable but unremarkable…the higher quality was though definitely something else!

Although I normally drink only Vinho Verde Branco, curiosity drove me to take a couple of bottles of Tinto along together with a case of Branco. I did the right thing. Twenty years ago, Ponte da Barca Vinho Verde (from the Cooperativa & the ‘home-brewed’ variety) could have substituted for Sarsons…today, the Cooperativa produces some of the best VV available.

Encosta da Cesta Red

Our new small private winery produces a red which is almost black in the glass, unusually full-bodied with a fairly high 12%Alc. I am not knowledgeable about wine but this, to me, is pretty good if you’re into red VV…….but I shall stick to the Branco..

The pale straw coloured 13% Alc. Branco was excellent; the wine tingles on the palate, slightly bubbly & a joy to drink, almost vying for favour with the great Ponte da Barca Vinho Verde Branco Meio Seco produced by the Cooperativa today.

I do not know where our new winery distributes its produce but, given its size, it cannot be too far afield. They obviously intend to expand, as a considerable area of the surrounding land is being planted with vines.

Encosta da Cesta Vinho Verde

Should you be in the neighborhood, a visit to the winery is strongly recommended. Prices (at the Winery) for both Tinto & Branco, lower quality €1,50 a bottle…for the good stuff €2.50 – & and that price a better Vinho Verde would be hard to find, believe me!

UPDATE:

A further visit to the winery was necessary because I had dispersed my first small stock to friends. This time I was fortunate to meet the owner, Senhor Nelson Cerqueira, whose father had bought the land as an investment while in Australia where Senhor Nelson was born, returning to Portugal when he was a small child.

Senhor Nelson is now planting, probably wisely, the Alvarinho grape variety & told me that he plans, eventually, to make ‘champagne’ (Cava, Sekt)….he told me that in 2011 he had produced approximately 250,000 liters. I thought this might be excessive & asked him to write it down…and so it is.

I think his market is local to the North & he is able to move it all…there is a small export to Andorra (neighbor connections) and he hopes to expand in the course of time.

While Cesta means basket of course, this particular Cesta is the name of one of the many small Lugars in the Freguesia.

To sum up, should you find some of this eminently drinkable wine in your travels, treat yourself.

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People who don’t live in Portugal may find it hard to believe that I purchased a 2.50€ wine as a Friday night treat, but this is in fact quite true. We have regular [...]]]> We recently found a new white wine of choice that I only picked up due to its price and rather attractive label.

People who don’t live in Portugal may find it hard to believe that I purchased a 2.50€ wine as a Friday night treat, but this is in fact quite true. We have regular mid-week

Porca da Murça - Portuguese White Wine

wine choices that can be had for between 1.29€ and 1.60€! If you visit us and get given a bottle in the 4€ range then you are truly a distinguished guest!

Anyway, this tasty white is from the Douro region, and goes by the name of Porca da Murça. It has the trademark tropical / gooseberry taste of a really good Malborough sauvignon blanc – something I miss greatly from the UK. Finding this is a great result for me, as it’s better than most of the supermarket sauvignon blancs available back in England, that, needless to say, come at a far higher price.

For those that know their Portuguese wine, I would describe this as rather like white Fonte de Nico (one of our regular budget wines), but one that is a little more grown-up, oaky, and sophisticated. It tastes far more expensive than it is, and that’s always good! Highly recommended, and spotted in Continente as well as a couple of small local stores.

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Many expats (ourselves included), cite the ready availability of high quality, fresh local food as one of the main reasons for moving here. We have certainly embraced it, and can [...]]]> The opening of a new Iceland store in the Algarve has provoked some strong debate amongst the expats in Portugal who frequent certain Internet forums.

Many expats (ourselves included), cite the ready availability of high quality, fresh local food as one of the main reasons for moving here. We have certainly embraced it, and can be found at Tavira market most weekends, stocking up on wonderful produce, fish and meat.

However, after living here a while, you do come to miss certain things, especially some cooking ingredients that are hard to find or very expensive. For this reason, we count ourselves among those welcoming Iceland’s arrival, and all of the extra culinary variety it brings with it.

The new Iceland store in Albufeira is not a British Iceland as such. It is run by a Spanish-based company called Overseas, who have an agreement with Iceland to sell their products in Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands. Unknown to us before we visited, the company also have a deal with Waitrose, so their products appear on the shelves alongside those from Iceland, as well as many well-known British brands.

We visited at the weekend, choosing to avoid the opening day crowds, but the store was still very busy and perhaps not for the faint-hearted. (Or, for that matter, for the one expat who we heard saying outside saying that he was “never bloody well coming here again!”)

Iceland in Albufeira

Fuelled by espressos and sugary churros from the van outside, we grabbed our trolleys and disappeared into the shop for a pleasurable couple of hours of exploring products that until now had been off-limits in Portugal–due to cost or lack of availability.

160 euros later, we left the store very pleased indeed. Plenty of Portuguese people, excited by a new range of products, joined the smiling expats, happy to have access to a well-priced taste of home.

Interestingly, the grocery aisles were far more crowded than the freezer sections – the particular highlights for us were condiments, ethnic foods, and some of the oils, herbs and spices not readily available in the Algarve.

The prices were low too, with the mark-up that must have to cover transport and importation costs seeming, to us at least, very generous.

Iceland in Albufeira also has a UK-style butchers counter, and although we didn’t make use of this, having already visited a “local” butcher earlier in the day, there was much of interest to us, especially fat English style lamb chops and big gammon joints.

I find it hard to find anything to criticize. The arrival of Iceland has created jobs, both for locals and expats, and given lots of variety to natives and expats alike. I can see the keen pricing offering a challenge to smaller food importers and Apolonia – but that is just the way business goes. Overseas and Iceland seem to be doing extremely well so far and they deserve to.

My Favourite Smoked Mackerel Salad - Thanks Iceland!

I’ll finish off with some of the highlights of our purchases from our first visit to Iceland in Portugal.

1. Christmas Crackers (we went without last year as the only ones we saw were extremely overpriced in Apolonia).

2. Lime leaves and lemon grass (once again we can enjoy Thai food without needing a mortgage to eat at the wonderful, but expensive Thai restaurant in Vilamoura).

3. Smoked mackerel (about to be devoured in a salad with new potatoes, walnuts and beetroot, as pictured above!)

4. Frozen cheesecake (Portuguse cheesecake isn’t cheesecake, sorry.)

5. Mini Kievs and Spaghetti Hoops (my wife’s highlights…OK so we did buy some processed food!)

6. Horseradish, mustard, cranberry sauce, redcurrant jelly, tartare sauce – all at prices we could afford – these often cost as much in Portugal as the meat or fish they are designed to accompany!

7. Quality Streets – well it’s nearly Christmas isn’t it?!

Iceland won’t be somewhere we visit, or need to visit, every week, but we WILL be back!Similar Posts:

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To our shame, we found it a week or so later looking a little past its best, when we had already [...]]]> Lemongrass can be really tricky to get hold of in the Algarve, so we were delighted to find some in our local supermarket recently, and looked forward to making a Thai dish with it.

To our shame, we found it a week or so later looking a little past its best, when we had already planned our meals for the week. My wife was determined not to throw it away after we had been so delighted to find it. She had heard that the usual use for lemongrass in Portugal was to make tea with it, so that is what she did. Over to her.

This is really the simplest recipe ever. It makes two cups of delicious, fragrant lemongrass tea. As lemongrass has a wide range of health benefits (from lowering cholesterol to preventing acne), it’s good for you too.

Ingredients:

Portuguese Lemongrass Tea

1 stick of lemongrass
Boiling water

1. Chop the lemongrass into 1 cm chunks in a small jug.
2. Pour enough boiling water into the jug for two cups of tea.
3. Allow to steep for 3-5 minutes, to taste.
4. Pour into tea cups, straining to remove the chunks of lemongrass if you prefer.

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For those that don’t know the East Algarve, Santa Luzia brands itself as the “capital [...]]]> Our stop-off at “A Casa” in Santa Luzia was unplanned, but their blackboard listed a range of tempting petiscos (the Portuguese equivalent of tapas). This appealed to us, as we were peckish, but not sufficiently hungry for a full meal.

For those that don’t know the East Algarve, Santa Luzia brands itself as the “capital of octopus (polvo),” so it was unsurprising to find a range of octopus dishes on the menu.

Service was quick and friendly, and we ordered a selection of snacks to compliment the bread and queijo fresco that immediately appeared on the table.

Again, for those unfamiliar with such things, queijo fresco is a light cheese, rather like set cottage cheese, and supplied as part of the pre-meal couvert in many Portuguese restaurants. Queijo fresco is often rather tasteless, and needs rescuing with copious amounts of sat and pepper, but this was a goat version with a slightly stronger flavor than usual – a good start!

We started with a plate of cooked prawns, served simply with rock salt. The menu suggested these were local, and they were light in colour and tasted of the sea—a pleasing change from the rich, sweet varieties typically sold in the supermarkets. They were a little small, however, with not lot of meat remaining once shell and vein were disposed of. Still, they were tasty and disappeared quickly.

We followed our prawns with a generous serving of conquilhas – tiny cockles served hot in their shells in a simple butter, coriander and garlic sauce. Restaurants serve these in much the same way across the Algarve, and the difference between good conquilhas and bad is how well the chef has purged the bi-valves of salt. Sadly, these has some remaining, resulting in one in three causing a nasty crackle between the teeth—a shame, as they were fresh and delicious.

A Casa Santa Luzia

To finish up we figured we would have to finally try the local octopus. I’m sure we have eaten it before as part of a shellfish rice or cataplana, but the time had come for us to order it specifically.

The option we chose was octopus in a feijoada (bean stew.) Interestingly, I was uncertain after my first taste, but by the end of the dish, I was rather sold. Good feijoada is perfect comfort food, and this blend of octopus, butter beans and chorizo was bound together with a thick, but not overly rich gravy. As I commented to my wife at the time, this is a dish that, at some point soon, I am going to specifically crave, in the same way I have come to crave two other Portuguese dishes: bacalhau a bras (saltcod with potatoes, onion, egg and olives), and arroz de pato (duck rice).

As this was only a quick snack stop, we didn’t hang around for desserts, and our bill was suitably small, around 25€ for the items mentioned above and a half-bottle of white wine. “A Casa” in Santa Luzia didn’t blow us away, but there was nothing we ate that wasn’t perfectly pleasant, and served with a smile. For that reason I recommend it as a solid choice for a simple meal.Similar Posts:

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In addition to figs from our neighbours, which we used to make fig jam , another glut of ripe, delicious Portuguese fruit came our way this week – yellow plums [...]]]> Continuing on the theme of preserves and ways to use up excess produce, my wife was busy again this week making plum chutney…over to her….

In addition to figs from our neighbours, which we used to make fig jam , another glut of ripe, delicious Portuguese fruit came our way this week – yellow plums from my mum’s orchard. After eating as many as we could, we still had bowlfuls of them left, so decided to make some chutney.

I used a recipe that I tweaked slightly from the wonderful Complete Book of Preserves and Pickles – an indispensible handbook for anyone growing their own fruit and vegetables. As with all recipes like this, it is possible to adapt it to the produce you have available and to suit your own tastes, so experiment and have fun. The book can be found here:

Complete Book Preserves & Pickle

Recipe

Spicy Plum Chutney

Ingredients:

2lb yellow plums, halved and pitted
1 large finely chopped onion
2 inch piece root ginger, grated
3 whole star anise
1.5 cups white wine vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
4 big sliced celery sticks
3 hot red chillies
2 crushed garlic cloves

1. Boil half of the white wine vinegar with the plums, onion, ginger and star anise in a large pan.

2. Simmer until the plums have softened (this will depend on how ripe your plums are to start with – it took about 15 minutes for ours).

3. Stir the rest of the vinegar and all the remaining ingredients into the pan.

4. Cook gently until the sugar has dissolved, remove the star anise and bring to the boil.

5. Simmer until the mixture is thick and chunky and there is no liquid left – i.e. until it looks like chutney. This took us just under two hours, but check and stir it frequently to make sure it doesn’t stick.

6. Turn off the heat and tip the chutney into sterilised, pre-heated Kilner jars.

7. Cover the chutney in each jar with a small disk of baking parchment cut to size.

Store the jars in a cool, dark place for anywhere up to two years.

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