{"id":16342,"date":"2016-11-29T08:03:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T08:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=16342"},"modified":"2016-11-29T08:03:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T08:03:22","slug":"in-madeira-with-blandys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/in-madeira-with-blandys","title":{"rendered":"In Madeira with Blandy’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"madeira\"<\/p>\n

I’m in Madeira. It’s my first time on the island. It’s quite a beautiful place.<\/p>\n

\"Funchal\"
Funchal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tasting
Tasting at Blandy’s wine lodge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reason? To find out about Madeira wine, with the island’s largest producer, Blandy’s<\/a>. Day one consisted of a tasting through the current commercially available range of wines, followed by a drive around the island to look at the various vineyards.<\/p>\n

\"Tinta
Tinta Negra vineyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

Madeira is an isolated island, formed by a volcanic eruption in the Atlantic some 10 million years ago. It’s south west of Portugal, and is actually closer to Morocco than Lisbon. It’s a striking place, with very little flat ground. Steep slopes, cliffs, and contours are the way Madeira rolls.<\/p>\n

\"Madeira
Madeira ageing in the lofts at Blandy’s wine lodge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The vineyards are found in tiny pockets. Overall, there are just 490 hectares of vines on the island, and 85% of these are Tinta Negra. The white varieties Serial, Verdelho, Bual and Malmsey make up the bulk of the remainder, and these are in demand: there’s not enough of them to go round.<\/p>\n

\"Verdelho
Verdelho vineyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most of the vineyards are grown on a pergola system, here known as ‘latada’. But some are grown trellised, which helps with maturation. The average degree of alcohol of the harvested grapes is just 10, with 9 degrees the minimum legally allowed.<\/p>\n

\"Sercial
Sercial vineyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n

\"Chris
Chris Blandy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, we’ll be seeing more of the island, and also tasting through more wines at the main winery. I’m really looking forward to it. Madeira may be a tiny niche in the world of wine, but it’s a unique wine style and good examples are really compelling.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in Madeira. It’s my first time on the island. It’s quite a beautiful place. The reason? To find out about Madeira wine, with the island’s largest producer, Blandy’s. Day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[350],"class_list":["post-16342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portugal","category-uncategorized","tag-portugal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16356,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342\/revisions\/16356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}