It won’t have even registered with you that it’s been a bit quiet round here for a while, because hardly anyone reads this rubbish. But it has and the reason has been that I’ve been on holiday. Not just me, of course; I took the family as well. We went to Madeira. It’s a spectacular island – the top of a volcano sticking out of the Atlantic. There aren’t any beaches, its incredibly steep sides just disappear beneath the sea. We were perched on the side of the island at Cabo Girao, overlooking Funchal, the capital, and on the edge of one of the world’s steepest sea cliffs. You walked to the edge, looked over the fence and it was literally 590m straight down to, appropriately, some vineyards and the sea. Vertigo inducing.
We had a bottle of wine each evening and, to be honest, I can hardly remember any of them! I can’t say that I’m a fan of the fortified madeira wine itself, so we stuck to various reds and whites from Portugal (we had to, there wasn’t anything else available…). None of them were particularly offensive; just not very spectacular. Back home in France now though and we’ve got friends coming over this weekend so I’m off to buy some wine tomorrow to get us through the next few days. The weather’s great so I’m hoping we’ll be doing a fair bit of cooking on the barbecue (I’ve got a brand new one to put together…how very exciting!) so I’ll be looking for some nice crisp whites and some fruity Right Bank reds, I reckon.
Red Vin Man 
May 9, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Well how nice to hear from you! As a recently converted blogger positively dribbling with enthusiasm at my new sport, I know how nice it is to get one’s first ‘comment’ – so here you go. And there’s also something nice about getting in first (assuming I am first) – a bit like buying the first round at the bar – people think you’re being generous but actually it’s just so you can relax for an hour and not have to worry about it being your round.
Not been to Madeira but sounds nice. It is tough going to places that don’t really ‘do’ wine, or at least not well. I went to India, Nepal and South America on my sabbatical a while ago – at least the beer was ok.