Amaraleja; always on my mind

Amaraleja is embedded in my mind like nowhere else. Yet, I’ve never been there, and only ever considered going there once: when I thought I could be present at Europe’s hottest ever moment.

This happened in 2018 when Portugal and Spain’s temperatures soared during a heatwave. I thought of rushing down to the small town, in the depths of the Alentejo, to be able to use the dateline for a story on global warming.

But the hot weather that descended on Iberia that summer failed to beat Amaraleja’s previous record high for Portugal, set in August 2003, when it reached 47.4 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t to be, Europe’s previous hottest temperature of 48 degrees, recorded in Athens in 1977, was unchallenged.

That said, Europe did beat its own previous high in 2021, but in Sicily, when it got to 48.8 degrees Celsius.

But with a torrid storm of heat hitting Iberia again in the coming days, I wonder if the record (for either Iberia or Europe) will be beaten this time? It seems like a slightly unusual one, since it’s coming reasonably early in the summer. Also, the world has hit countless new temperature records in recent years.

The current weather forecast suggests that the hottest temperature in Portugal will be 45 degrees, in the town of Serpa in south-east Alentejo, on Sunday. That said, nuestros hermanos in Spain (as some Portuguese refer to their neighbours) could see 47 degrees, according to a couple of forecasts.

Maybe the predictions will be wrong: maybe it’ll be hotter, or sizzle slightly less than expected.

Apart from watching the weather and my plants suffer, at least I know what I will do in the next couple of days: batten down the hatches, close the windows and hope that the thick walls in my farmhouse do the job of retaining some cool air, as they were designed to do.

Meanwhile, if you’re staying indoors this weekend, here’s the second chapter of my new book, The Caramel Vineyard:

CHAPTER TWO

Amalia returned to the terrace with an ice bucket and the moscatel bottle, which Dinis picked up to pour for himself and me, followed by dropping one ice cube into each of our glasses. There was also a generous, fresh helping of gin and tonic, which Amalia put on the table in front of Catarina, who smiled warmly at her in thanks.

I looked attentively at my hosts, as they both delved into their own activities as we sipped our drinks; Catarina continued reading her magazine and Dinis scrolled through messages on his phone. I didn’t interrupt, thinking that weekend lunch times on a vineyard must be packed with routines and traditions that had to be followed, centred around food, and of course wine. It reminded me of how my father believed that most people’s weekend breakfasts revolved around the bacon that he imagined must always be served with eggs.

The wind picked up, creating a mesmerizing hiss through the crowns of the olive, pine and cork trees scattered around the estate. It blew louder in the afternoon, especially in summer, creating one of the few soothing constants in my life during the baffling months I would spend with Catarina and Dinis. It also provided reassurance every time I wondered what on earth I was doing there, like now, as I waited patiently for my hosts to advance their slow lunch ritual.

At that moment Catarina put down her empty glass on the table after her last sip, and Amalia promptly stepped out of the kitchen entrance to signal that lunch was ready. “Estã pronto,” she said quickly and turned back.

Dinis got up and led us back inside. Acting as master of ceremonies, he opened two sliding doors at the end of the study, led the way into the large dining room and beckoned to me to sit to the right of his spot at the head of the table. Catarina sat on his left.

“Do help yourself,” he said, waving his open palm in front of him to display the perfectly set table. “We thought we would serve you something traditional from this region on your first day, so we chose secrets of pork accompanied with creamed spinach. And, it goes especially well with the full-bodied red from my Castelão old vines.”

I scoured the table’s perfection: from the spotless cloth and silverware, to the shiny wine glasses and the steaming food trays in the middle. The napkin to the left of my plate was so neatly folded that I hesitated to pick it up.

“I can’t thank you enough,” I said, leaning forward to serve myself. “This looks gorgeous.”

In a quick movement, Dinis suddenly brushed the tablecloth with a flick of the side of his hand, as if to check how spotless it was. Then he picked up a small silver bell, which he rang, and Amalia quickly appeared with a decanter full of red wine.

Dinis poured into our glasses. I was impressed, again, but for a very brief moment I also wondered whether all this was for show.

“Gosh, do all your meals run like clockwork?” I said. “You must have a lot of guests.”

“Well, we are in the business of selling wine, so we are somehow obliged to. After all, the easiest way to offer a personalized touch to wine is over a meal,” Dinis said. Then, turning to his wife: “Isn’t that so, dear?”

“If you say so, Dinis,” she said, appearing not quite as enthusiastic about hosting as her husband, but quickly smiling at me.

“We have to make a living, and this is how we do it. Now, Robin, this is pretty much our flagship wine, our top of the range product, so to speak,” he said, pointing to my glass. I sipped and he looked at me.

“Well?”

“Not bad at all,” I said, knowing that I should say much more but having no other words to utter.

“Yes, but now, what aromas do you sense and taste? What smells? Fruity, or what? To become a wine connoisseur, that’s what you have to learn.”

“I promise you I don’t know much,” I said. “As you probably know, wine is pretty expensive in Denmark, so we drink a lot of beer. But I hope to learn as much as possible from you while I’m here.”

“I’m sure you will. There is an awful lot to pick up, from the pruning of the vines, to the harvest and then the fermentation and aging process at the end,” he said. “Making wine takes a lot of time and effort.”

I nodded and thought that I really should have read something about wine production before I came, but my indecision about pretty much everything in the past few months prevented it. Best change the subject, I thought.

“So, how long have you had this place?” I asked.

“I acquired it about twenty-five years ago, around the time we were married,” Dinis said. “It had gone to ruin. So, we set about bringing it back to life, so to speak.”

I noticed a sudden shift in Catarina after his words. She turned her face away and breathed in deeply, as if holding anger back.

“Well, enough about us. What about you?” she said quickly, looking at me after casting a chilly sideways glance at her husband.

“Me, well, I’m…a straight-forward Dane,” I blurted out, momentarily disarmed by having to focus on myself rather than the fascinating world of Herdade de Aurora that I had entered only a few hours earlier.

Catarina chuckled a little. “So, apart from being straight-forward, what do you like, what drew you to farming?”

“Tradition, I suppose. Family tradition, that’s for sure. The truth is my father really wants me to take over from him,” I said. “I’m still thinking about that.”

“Here in Portugal, family traditions are very important,” she said. “You should probably consider it carefully, but these decisions can take time.”

“Yes, exactly. I guess that’s why I thought it would be a good idea to come here, to get a break from it all.”

“Well, we are very glad you did,” she said, quickly adding “I liked your profile.”

“What, you looked at my profile?” I said, thinking why on earth would Catarina have looked at my online profile.

“Oh no, God forbid, I meant your CV in the network,” she said, referring to the pan-European farmers’ network my father had used to find me a position. “You have languages, and seem to like hard work.”

“Thank you, that’s kind of you.”

“Anyway, good to get some new blood down here, makes a nice change,” she said, this time looking at her husband, who made no comment.

I had just slipped the last slice of juicy pork into my mouth when Dinis rang his bell again – maybe to interrupt the conversation – and Amalia appeared instantly to clear the plates from the table.

“Now, coffee? Desert?”

“That was delicious. Just coffee for me, please,” I said, feeling drowsy after the food and wine, especially as I was not used to heavy meals in the middle of the day.

Coffee was served and Dinis suggested we visit the wine cellar before afternoon rest time, sending my heart beating faster. So I hadn’t been stupid enough about his favourite wine to put him off bringing me to his most private domain, I thought.

“Oh, how exciting,” Catarina said with a subtle tone of sarcasm as she slipped out of the dining room. “Let’s see if he takes you into his special room, where he keeps the most expensive stuff. He doesn’t even take me there. As they say, it’s a man’s world.”

I followed him back to the reception, where he stretched his arm above the tall mantelpiece to fetch a large key that was out of view. He slipped it into a small, sturdy wooden door next to the fireplace, which I hadn’t noticed before, and directed me to go first with a nod of the head as the hinges creaked open.

A narrow staircase of well-trodden stone steps led the way into the bowels of the mansion, to the hidden treasure trove of lavish wines below. Thankfully, Dinis turned on the light above me on the staircase as I descended into the darkness, which very briefly scared me into thinking this was the perfect place to push someone to their sudden death. Such was my overly rich imagination, which had naturally gone into overdrive since arriving at Herdade de Aurora.

Cool, slightly dank, air met me when I reached the bottom, where three rows of full wine racks ran down both sides of the rectangular room. It stretched surprisingly far, possibly as much as the entire width of the mansion. For wine tasting, a low table carved out of a tree trunk was placed in the middle of the room with six stools standing around it. The walls and floor were of old rugged cement, painted in white, and two wooden columns held up the ceiling.

“My favourite place in the house,” Dinis said.

“I have no doubt,” I said.

“Do walk around, get a feel for the place. There are about 2,000 bottles here, categorized by type and age, some more than a hundred years old. But be careful, many are expensive, worth thousands of euros,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to break one.”

I had never been to a wine cellar before, let alone one on an actual vineyard. It felt magical, like a garage full of vintage cars. Everything seemed to be here: reds, whites, moscatels, ports, madeira, reserves, non-reserves, family collections and many non-Portuguese wines. They were all labelled, and I walked slowly down one of the rows, perusing the bottles.

It was a relief not to have to think about the taste, letting me relax and just look at the wines, to enjoy the designs and names on the bottles. Perhaps this was Dinis’s intention, meant as the very first step in the induction to his trade: show off the most opulent final products first, only to then jump into the vines and the dirt in the fields afterwards.

Slowly making my way along a row of bottles, I realized that Dinis had disappeared from view. Then I heard a distinct click somewhere nearby, as if from the lock of a door. Perhaps he had slipped into what Catarina had described as his ‘special room’. It seemed strange, but no door was actually visible when I looked around. So I continued my tour, becoming increasingly fascinated by the aging labels on the bottles.

It seemed that the older the wine, the more beautiful the labels became, and the more intriguing the names were. In the moscatel section was a bottle from 1912 called Bastardinho. Why would anyone name an old, valuable sweet wine ‘Little Bastard’? Surely, it could only be for fun, I thought. Then I spotted a number of bottles of Barca Velha, which I vaguely recalled was one of Portugal’s best wines. Again, it was a mystery to me why such an example of oenological finery would be called ‘Old Boat’. Portugal’s winemakers must just have a serious sense of humour, I figured.

I reached the end of the row and turned back, making my way towards the wine-tasting table in the centre of the room. As I walked Dinis suddenly appeared, from behind what looked like a curtain at the other end of the room, close to the staircase. The curtain must have hung in front of the door.

“Ah, there you are,” he said. “How did you find it?”

“Wonderful, you have an amazing collection,” I said.

Unable to withhold my curiosity, I added: “So, did you go into your special room?”

“That’s none of your business, is it, Robin?” he said, looking at me directly with piercing eyes. “Especially since only I go in there, and nobody else.”

I immediately felt sorry about the question, and this time, unlike the mispronunciation of his name earlier in the day, there was no doubt that he was angry.

“I am very sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” I said with as much sincerity as possible, utterly confused by why his wife had mentioned the room in the first place.

Dinis didn’t say anything else, turned his back to me and walked up the stairs. I followed.

A few minutes later I was in my bedroom, standing on a solid pine parquet floor. Light streamed inside when I opened the wooden shutters covering the window, which looked onto the drive. The furniture was rustic country-home style, with a large double bed, a pair of comfortable armchairs by the window and ensuite bathroom.

Dinis had taken me to the second floor and led me along the corridor to the guest wing, opening the second door. “This is your room,” he said, and left.

I was tired and confused about exactly why Dinis was so angry, and lay down on the bed, where I fell asleep nearly instantly. It must have been about forty minutes later when I was awakened by voices from the window.

I leapt out of bed and looked down at the drive, where a big, black Mercedes limousine was parked. Dinis and Catarina came out of the house and I strained to listen, but the sound was too muffled to discern anything other than that their voices were loud. Maybe they were arguing, I thought with a touch of guilt at jumping to a conclusion so quickly. A chauffeur opened and closed the doors for them, the car’s engine came to life and they sped off.

Suddenly, I felt quite isolated. They had left me, alone, in a huge mansion ninety minutes from Lisbon in the middle of the countryside. I appreciated that it was Saturday evening and that they were rich people, and that rich people had people to see and parties to go to. But still, what was I supposed to do?

Thankfully, I spotted a note that had been slipped under the door, giving me hope. It said:

Dear Robin,

We have a social engagement in town which we have to attend. Please take anything you like from the kitchen and enjoy the house and garden as you wish. Amalia, the housekeeper, is there and can help with anything you may need.

Best wishes

Catarina

So, I hadn’t been completely stranded, and breathed easier. The day’s impressions began to overwhelm me as I thought about them, from the dazzling estate to the beautiful nature and the rich winemaking traditions in this unique corner of Europe. It was certainly exotic, as my father had said it would be, and far removed from anything I had experienced before. But then, there was also the strange interaction between Dinis and Catarina which was uncomfortable and, so far, impossible to fathom. It was puzzling and maybe there was a hint of intrigue to it? For now, I just didn’t know.