Old Blandy’s Wine Lodge
Avenida Arriaga 32 Funchal
9000-064 Madeira
Portugal
Date of Last Visit: 11 October 2008
The Victims: Mom, Mrs. C, Leanne
The Background: I am a good daughter. I’ve arranged for a private guided tour of Madeira, a cable car ride, a lovely lunch. And now a tour of Old Blandy’s Wine Lodge.
And you know what the ladies say to me? What my own mother says not even half-way through what I think is a very informative tour?
WHERE IS THE BAR? CAN WE GO THERE NOW?
Yes, they sneak us out of the tour and down a flight of stairs that’s cordoned off with a red velvet rope. They want to go to the gift shop. And the bar. The tasting room is very atmospheric. We sit on old barrels.
And then we get some madeira to try. We get two glasses each to start, but we can go up and get more. This is a lot of madeira for four women. (That’s my Klaus Haapaniemi notebook in the background.)
We try it all. Dry (Sercial). Semi-dry (Verdelho–my favorite). Semi-sweet (Bual). Sweet (Malvasia).
And high on sunshine and Madeira (both the island and the wine), we trip our way out of there.
P.S. Don’t forget…blog about Your Perfect Day in London by October 24th. I’ll summarize all the blog posts for all to publish on their blogs as a traffic-building exercise…
2 comments
Didn’t you take the sleigh ride down the cobblestone paths into Funchal??
David, unfortunately I didn’t! I couldn’t convince my mom and her friends to do it. They thought they were too old for it!
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