Congratulations(Sir Cliff Richard) - An afternoon at Adega do Cantor

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There was the odd shower around as we started the day but we had decided to wait until after lunch before we ventured out to visit the winery Sir Cliff Richard owns in partnership.

The man who had been fixing the tiles on the shower poolside didn’t turn up for work today as it was going to be showery and he was at a stage where he needed a sustained period of dry weather to finish off his task.

We cleaned off the rest of the Heinz baked beans in toasted sandwiches for lunch and then readied ourselves for the short drive inland from Albufeira to Guia where the winery is located along with Sir Cliff’s home. We didn’t expect him to be there because we had read that he usually only arrives in Portugal for a summer break after Wimbledon which won’t be until early July.

After initially driving past the road we retraced our steps and found the winery a short distance from the main road. We had earlier tried to find out if there were any tours of the winery today but had not a reply so we thought we would at least make it to the cellar door and see what happens from there and hopefully we could get to do some tasting.

There were a few cars in the car park but no one around as we gingerly opened the cellar door.

We had struck just the right moment!

Although we had missed the tour of the winery the woman at the counter let us join in the wine tasting that was just about to start as the tour group arrived in from walking around the winery.

There was a group of about 20 or so people mostly Brits and we joined them in the barrel room where the red vintage was maturing.

The winery tour group leader gave us the background of each of the 4 wines we got to taste and an hour passed by very easily. We started with the voiginer which was not blended and then moved onto the blended white wine which had 3 varietals.

We finished off with the 2 reds on offer, one of which was a straight Shiraz while the other was a reserve which we must say was very drinkable. Unfortunately they were out of rose and waiting on the latest vintage to become available in about 2 weeks. Looks like we might just have to see if we can find a Waitrose store in England as apparently they have bought out the vintage.

The tasting finished off in a special way for one of the Brits who was celebrating his birthday. This bought out a bottle of the 75^th Celebration ‘champagne’ vintage and everyone got a taste of that while we sang happy birthday to the birthday boy.

We thought that without the birthday boy being revealed we wouldn’t have got a chance to taste the ‘Celebration’ and might not have known it was for sale when we went back through to the cellar door room where we bought a bottle to celebrate Gretchen’s birthday in a few days time and also a couple of the other special packs that had for sale.

We finished off the afternoon at the winery with a walk around the place and down to the tennis court that we assume Sir Cliff uses when he is in residence and also the cottage which was more of a substantial house with its own swimming pool in a courtyard which Gretchen said could be rented. Don’t think Sir Cliff advertises it on booking.com or Air BnB though!

So a special afternoon and we were pleased we could do this so close to Gretchen’s birthday.

Back at the apartment we again discovered sunbather’s right next to our apartment poolside. This time it was a couple of older Brits laid out soaking up the late afternoon sun. Just why they have to virtually camp outside our entrance to the apartment when there is so much other space around the pool.

Anyway they didn’t last too long and we were able to enjoy our pre dinner drinks and nibbles in solitude under the shade of a leafy pepper tree on the other side of the pool as the sun started to sink behind the other buildings.



Tomorrow its goodbye to Portugal and hello again to Spain as we move across country and slightly inland to a spot near Seville.

PS enjoy Cliffs rendition of Congratulations on YouTube(in black and white)while you read this blog to get the feeling.

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