Monte Gordo - Beach, Food & Wine

What do you do when you get an invitation for a beach weekend in the Algarve? Well, you pack your suit!

Gourmet_Portugal_Monte_Gordo

Last weekend, we were invited out to a relaxing weekend in Monte Gordo, a small town just east of Faro and close to the Spanish boarder. Not quite ready for summer, we dug up the hibernating swim suits, packed a couple of necessity and we were ready, well almost… Before heading out, we needed to find something special to take in appreciation of this wonderful invitation. Knowing our hosts were adamant foodies, we agonized…then remembered, we had just what the occasion called for.

A few weeks back a friend surprised us with a lovely hamper from Gourmet Portugal, filled with traditional Portuguese goodies. I always feel a little guilty breaking into one myself, so sharing this treasure with friends seemed the prefect way to enjoy a basket full of treats without guilt. Add a couple of wine bottles, and we were set…to the Beach!

Mini Wine Tasting with Catavino & Adegga

While visiting our friends from Adegga, during a recent Lisbon trip, we got the opportunity to also meet the Catavino’s, otherwise known as Gabriella & Ryan Opaz. Besides finally getting to put faces to names & emails, we also got to eat and drink wine!

Catavino

Although, a long drive home meant we’d miss the deliciousness soon to come out of the kitchen, we did squeeze in a mini wine tasting, with 3 whites Gabriella and Ryan brought for all of us to try. We also, learned a valuable lesson… next time there’s wine, food and this gang, we’re staying for the weekend!

The wines:

Planalto Douro Reserva, 2006
Casa de Paços , 2005
Quinta de Paços Arinto Reserva, 2005

For detailed tasting notes, plus the recipes for the great dinner we missed, stroll on over to Catavino.

Rosé Wine: Fonte de Nico 2006

There’s nothing quite like a bottle of chilled Rosé to welcome summer, actually think we’re still officially in spring but with such gorgeous weather lately who’s going to argue the point?

Algarve Celebrates - Euro Cup Madness 2008

Football fever hit the Algarve hard yesterday, with Portugal scheduled to play one of the first Euro Cup 2008 games in Geneva, Switzerland.

Portugal_euro_cup_2008

Early in the day the anxiety mounted with honking cars, people dressed & painted head to toe in Red, Green & Yellow, and everywhere you looked the Portuguese flag hung proudly off balconies, cars and even motorcycles. We headed downtown Faro with friends looking for food, football and pride.

Portugal winning 2-0 to Turkey, naturally sent everyone into the streets celebrating, late into the evening…and this is just beginning…

For more pictures here and if you’re interested in keeping tabs on Portugal during the Euro Cup, you can follow here.

Força Portugal!

Allgarve

We normally post a monthly calendar of events in the region, but Allgarve, (that’s no typo) is a summer event program, organized by the Algarve Tourism Board, that showcases “fun, leisure and culture” in the region, all summer long.

Before you plan your summer trip to the Algarve, take a visit to the new Allgarve.pt website (in English, Portuguese and Spanish) to find the programs and events that interest you.

The site lists activities from golf, gastronomy, culture, jazz, to sports, sailing etc. Simply, click on your activity of interest and be presented with a calendar of upcoming event.

Here are a few events that got our attention:

Wine Lovers & World Enviroment Day

In case you didn’t know, June 5th, is World Environment Day, and I just came across something interesting for those who love wine and the great earth it comes from.

Green Cork

As of today, a new wine cork program - Green Cork- is launching in Portugal, and currently in talks to go global. The program focuses on recycling wine bottle corks at central locations such as grocery stores, to facilitate collection. Here in the Algarve, Continente supermarkets are the first to support the program, so you can look to them for their Cork recycling containers, believe the first location will be in Portimao. Then hopefully, we’ll see others such as Modelo, Pingo Doce, Jumbo, etc. following suit.