Day 7 – Madeira: Quinta do Furão, TerraBona & São Cristóvão
I woke up at 8:30 am and had a lazy start to our day. My calves were SORE after yesterday’s hike. By 10:30am we hit the road. Today’s plan was to eat, explore, and relax. We had lunch reservations at Quinta de Furao in Santana, which was the original Quinta I wanted to stay at but sadly it was sold out. On the way to Santana we stopped in Seixal for a coffee and pastry, unfortunately both pastries looked better than they tasted. We walked down to Seixal beach, the black sand beach of Madeira, where many people were attempting to surf. They were definitely tourists and it honestly looked sketchy with the rocks being right there, like someone could accidentally surf into them and crash – no thank you.
We continued to drive 40 minutes along the northern coast of Madeira to Santana. We arrived at Quinta do Furao, a stunning property tucked away in the Northeast corner of the island. We were 15 minutes early for our reservation so we walked around the property to explore. The views of the coastline below were phenomenal, they had their own small vineyard and wine cellar, a pizzeria where you could see the chefs rolling and prepping the dough for lunchtime, and a small wedding venue. The only let down was the pool which looked much better online than in person (I would call it a shallow manmade pond rather than a pool) and there were no lounge chairs near it.
By 12pm we were seated on the balcony of the restaurant and ordered a bottle of white Portuguese wine to start. For appetizers we ordered the Kaitaifi shrimp and cheese trio. I expected the cheese dish to be 3 cheeses for us to taste with our wine but instead it was a MASSIVE cheese board. I popped 4 dairy pills to experience this cheese plate for good measure – let’s pray it works. (unfortunately some of the dairy here has been affecting my stomach unlike other European destinations we’ve been too but luckily I packed Lactaid with me). Stelios and I ranked the cheeses the same with the melted/charred cows cheese as our favorite, the chili cow cheese 2nd, the peppered cheese 3rd, and the Brie was last. Apparently there is not different types of cheeses on the island of Madeira, they are all just labeled “cows cheese” but are prepared differently and each one genuinely tasted different. The pumpkin jam that came with the cheese plate was also amazing, and the dried apricots were a nice sweet treat at the end. For our main we shared the Black scabbarfish with banana, and thank goodness we split it because the dish was 3 BIG filets of fish topped with Banana. By the end of the meal we were too full for dessert.
I desperately needed to walk off our meal before our wine tour at 4pm. So we drove 5 minutes to Santana Theme Park – a 1 mile path that was staged to represent village life in Madeira. It was 3€ to enter the park and each house had a different purpose or room that highlighted an aspect of village life – a bakery, atelier, woodworker, corn art, and textiles. Normally I would avoid an attraction like this but I needed to walk, preferably somewhere flat, and the park was practically empty. There was actually 2 local women sewing clothes and 1 was using some type of machine to make a village/folklore scarf. She only spoke Spanish and Portuguese so I asked her in Spanish how long it takes to make 1 scarf and she said 3 days, and that it takes a lot of work and patience. She reminded me of the grandmother from In The Heights on Broadway – Paciencia y fe! Personally I would not have the patience to do that but I commend her for it.
After an hour of walking around we exited the park and drove 25 minutes to TerraBona Winery – a very small and secluded wellness hotel & winery. We were greeted at the gate by Marco, the owner who would be our wine guide for the day. There were only 6 people in our group including us – a couple on their honeymoon from Colorado and 2 local Madeira journalists who were writing a piece on TerraBona – how cool! Marco explained to us that the original concept for TerraBona was a boutique hotel but it turned out the property sat on a 22 year old abandoned vineyard so the wine tastings were added as a marketing concept. It turned out that their wine was actually quite good and had them evaluated in London wine contests and by Robert Parker, where they were in fact deemed excellent wines. Now TerraBona has shifted, but the purpose of remaining small and handmade remains the same with only 5 villas on the property in order to preserve the rest of the vineyard, and no more than 1500 bottles of each of their wines made a year.
As for the actual tasting we got to taste 6 in total, each paired with a small snack. We tasted 2 rieslings – a 2017 Riesling, and a 2020 Riesling aged in French oak which is very rare. We also had 2 Madeiran white wines and an orange wine which was my favorite. TerraBona also makes a wine in clay bottles instead of oak, but those are only available to sample for their guests who stay in the villas unless you want to buy a bottle which is a whopping 90€.
Overall the wine was phenomenal and the winery property was beautiful , private, and feels like you’re in a nature retreat which is the vibe they’re going for. It’s a great place to stay if you want to be somewhere remote and completely unplug. After the tasting I chatted it up with the 2 journalists and asked if they had any other local restaurant recs after the wine tasting. At 6pm our group was kindly escorted out because they had a private dinner for their guests that would be starting soon. Marco did mention that there is a phase 2 of the TerraBona project that should open in 2 years to expand the land and include 4 more villas, an on site cafe, and lounge. I’d love to return someday to see it expanded and complete.
After TerraBona we wanted to explore more of the northern coastline so we drove to Sao Cristobal Viewpoint. This viewpoint also had a restaurant right above it so we ordered a glass of wine, sat on the couches, and took in the dramatic views of the cliffs touching the coastline and the roaring sea below. While we were lounging the owner came up to us and invited us down to his private residence for a closer view which was absolutely remarkable. I can’t even begin to imagine waking up to see this every morning. Unreal.
After taking some photos, and finishing our glass of wine we thanked the owner for allowing us to go down further and basically explore his front yard which had even better views than the actual viewpoint itself. After that experience we decided to stay at the restaurant for dinner. We ordered bolo de caco, Espetada, and octopus. I accidentally got full off of 4 pieces of bread by the time the octopus came, and had 1 piece of Steli’s espetada. The portions here were HUGE and even though I did eat some of my octopus it looked like I didn’t even put a dent in it. By 9:30pm we drove back to our hotel. It was a gluttonous day of delicious food & wine and we were ready for some much needed sleep.
