We want to extend a warm welcome to the blogging world to The Spanish Table in Berkeley , even if they are, in their own words, “the last person in the Bay Area to get a blog“. The Spanish Table is a mecca for Iberian food and wines, with stores located in Seattle, [...]

One of the small pleasures of the long, hot summer months in Alentejo, is the profusion of cheap and deliciously ripe melons. During the course of the season, different varieties appear in the market and most Alentejans abide by the hierarchy of eating the right melon at the right time. But we, for a [...]

August 30th – today I’d like to propose a toast to the memory of my step-father, Frederick Reginald Vandyke III, who lost his brave battle to prostate cancer precisely 1 year ago today, 87 years to the day after his birth 30th August 1920, in Calcutta, India.
In 1961, Fred made his first trip to Portugal [...]

From San Francisco to Portugal - from Portugal to San Francisco.
There couldn’t possibly be another Portuguese winery more thrilled than we were at winning the BEST of NATION Special Award for Portugal from the San Francisco International Wine Challenge 2008. There’s a very simple reason - San Francisco is my native town, albeit I have [...]

From Asia to Portugal - from Portugal to Asia.
They say it is hot in Alentejo at the moment. Over 30 degrees in the shade, I HEAR. Actually, I have to resort to hearsay as I have spent the past week away from the winery,C more exactly at the beach in Lagos [...]

I can just hear people saying, (perhaps it will even be the first comment that someone will make to this, our first Cortes de Cima winery blog post)……Oh no, not another winery blog! True enough, during the short time since we decided to start our own winery blog, I have noticed [...]