Star Quality Malvasia Wine – heaven in a glass

Posted on April 16, 2012 by sheila

Star Quality Malvasia wine - heaven in a glass

Malvasia is a white dessert wine from the south of La Palma. It’s too sweet to drink with fish (or to drink like a fish). In fact it’s similar to Maderia or a sweet sherry – more something you’d have at the very end of a meal with the local sweet almond biscuits.

In Shakespear’s day Malvasia wine was known as Malmsey, and it was very popular indeed. In the play Richard III, the Duke of Clarence is drowned in a butt of Malmsey, which seems like a dreadful waste of good wine to me.

Malvasia comes from Fuencaliente in the south of the island, and most of the vines are trained very low to the ground to prevent the grapes from dying out, which must make for back-breaking work. I love the stuff.

Bodegas Teneguia have a new, extra-special Malvasia on sale, which is aged for 16 years. It’s called “Calidad Estelar” – Star Quality, in honour of La Palma’s amazing dark skies. It seems to be winning prizes all over the place. Most recently, it won “Best Canarian Wine” at Agrocanarias2012, and a gold medal at the international Wine Festival Vinalies Internationales 2012 in Paris.

Obviously I’m not the only one who thinks it’s heaven in a glass.

Ultrabike 2012

Posted on March 29, 2012 by sheila

On Saturday April 6th, La Palma will host an extreme bike race called Ultrabike. Actually, there are two races, a short one of 34 km and a long one of 110 km. Both routes go through gorgeous scenery in the south of the island, and both involve lots of climbing. For example, the high point of the long ride is 1,575 m above sea-level, but the total climbs add up to 4,072 m, which is pretty much like climbing Teide.

There’s also a kids’ competition in Los Cancajos (any children who want to compete must be there by 9:30 am with their bike and helmet.)

Personally, I plan to spend the day sitting on the couch eating chocolate. But if you want to sign up for the race, the official website is at: http://www.ultrabikelapalma.com/index.php/en/en-competicion/event-data

Blessing animals in Fuencaliente

Posted on January 13, 2012 by sheila

Fiesta of St Anthony the Abbot, Fuencaliente, La Palma, Canary Islands
Tuesday 17th is the fiesta of San Antonio Abad (St. Anthony the Abbot) in Fuencaliente, and at midday the priest holds a special, traditional service to bless the animals in the church square. I went a couple of years ago, out of curiosity.

I didn’t know whether to expect pets or farm animals, but there was a charnming selection of both. At twelve promptly, the priest came out, gave a short sermon on looking after your animals, said a prayer, and then sprinkled the animals with holy water.

When the cat got wet, he said something you don’t expect to hear in church, but everyone else seemed happy.

Members of the congregation

Where’s the village gone?

Posted on November 18, 2010 by sheila

Map of La Palma municipalities

Tourists sometimes go nuts trying to find the village of Breña Baja, or Fuencaliente.

There’s a really simple reason why they can’t find them. They don’t exist. Breña Baja and Fuencaliente are municipalities, and their town halls are in the villages of San Jose and Los Canarios, respectively. It like driving all over the south east of England, looking for the town of Sussex.

The map shows the 14 municipalities (in blue) , with their administrative seats (in pink). Where
there’s no name in pink, the municipalities are named after their chief villages, which makes things simpler. Just to keep things interesting, one, San Andrés y Sauces, is named after the two biggest villages. The town hall is in Los Sauces, which is much bigger and on the main road.

That’s easy to find.

Fire fiesta on La Palma

Posted on June 21, 2010 by sheila

Poster for St John's Bonfire in La Palvacera, Breña Baja

Thursday is the feast of St John the Baptist. On La Palma, they have the very sensible custom of holding the party on the night before the public holiday, so that everyone can sleep late the morning after. Since fiestas often go on until the early hours, sleeping in next morning is delicious.

In Catholic countries, people celebrate the feast of St John with bonfires. (Any similarity to pagan midsummer festivals is purely coincidental.) On Wednesday, there will be lots of small, private bonfires, plus bigger ones in: San Andrés y Sauces, San Juan Belmaco (Malpaíses in Mazo). El Remo (in Fuencaliente), and in Puerta Naos (Los Llanos), the witches will dance round a bonfire on the beach.

On Thursday, there will be special church services in Puntallana (main village), and Belmaco in Malpais, Mazo.

Witches dancing on the beach on St John

Re-birth already

Posted on September 24, 2009 by sheila

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/
New needles on a burnt pine tree, Fuencaliente

It’s been raining intermittently for a week or so on the east of La Palma, so I went down to Fuencaliente to see whether the forests had started to re-grow. And here’s the result.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/
New needles on a burnt pine tree, Fuencaliente

It’s not happening everywhere yet, but I didn’t have to hunt either. I took all these photos the first time I stopped the car.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/
New needles on a scorched pine tree, Fuencaliente

In two or three years, it’ll be hard to see where the fire was.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/
New needles on a burnt grape vine, Fuencaliente

Even thought I knew this would happen, it was still great to see it. And of course, the other 98% of the island’s fine anyway.

Regenerating forest, Fuencaliente, La Palma/
New bracken shoots, Fuencaliente

Yippee! The Fire’s Under Control

Posted on August 4, 2009 by sheila

The island government has just announced that the fire’s under control.

“Under control” isn’t quite the same as “out”. It means the mountainside is still smouldering, and they have to put out the embers before the wind gets up. But with this weather, it really ought to be ok.

And apologies of you tried to access this site yesterday evening. The domain providers in the USA had a power cut which took out all their servers. As you can see, it’s all up and running again.

The Damage in Fuencaliente

Posted on August 3, 2009 by sheila

Burnt House in Fuencaliente, La Palma

My first impression of Los Canarios, the main village in Fuencaliente, is that it’s a heck of a lot better than I expected. The fire damage is very fluky, presumably because the fire moved so fast and the gusts of wind kept changing direction. As you can see, sometimes a house got burnt out completely, and its neighbours untouched, or the top floor burned, and the bottom floor looks fine, or one half of a semi-detached looks totalled, and the other half looks OK.

Burnt House in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Most of the badly damaged buildings I saw had people working in them already. Presumably the owners have already gone through swearing and crying, and they’re already getting on with it. I was impressed.

The Princess Hotel, La Palma

From a distance at least, the Princess Hotel looks fine and dandy. Most buildings look OK, and most shops are open. And the beautiful old church is fine.

A car repair workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente, La Palma
Car workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente

I don’t think this car workshop will bother to fix the cars outside it now. On the other hand, I was amazed to see this small survivor just outside the big petrol station.

A lizard that somehow survived

La Palma’s still burning

Posted on August 3, 2009 by sheila

Helicopter dropping water on the fire at Tigalate, on La Palma

The fire on La Palma is still burning, but it’s a lot smaller, and a lot farther up the mountain and away from houses. Hopefully, now that all the helicopters and both planes are dumping water on the same place, it’ll be sorted out soon.

Smouldering forest, Mazo, La Palma

Meanwhile there are acres and acres of smouldering forest, and people trying to get the fire completely out.

Mop up operatons in Fuencaliente, La Palma
Mop up operations in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Update on the Fire

Posted on August 1, 2009 by sheila

Map of fire
The fire started at Tigalate, and the main area of concern is currently between Santa Cecilia and Jeday

Well I got one thing wrong in the last post. There was a light breeze here, but up on the ridge where they were fighting the fire, it was blowing a gale up to 65 km/h – exactly the worst sort of weather for fire-fighting.

However, I was right that the Princess Hotel and Cancajos are safe. In fact that’s where they took the evacuees. About 100 are still in the Princess, and 115 in the army barracks at Cancajos. The rest are staying with friends and family.

So far, about 1,500 hectares have been burnt – mostly pine forest. If you were planning on walking or mountain biking in the south of the island – well it won’t be so pretty (although it will recover). So far, the north of the island is fine.

And now the good news. The wind has dropped, and the weather forecast is for the temperatures to drop 10-15ºC within 24-48 hours. At the moment, they’re trying to use the lava flows at Jeday and Pista de Los Cabritos as natural fire breaks, and to hold it there, or at least have a much smaller front to the fire. We now have helicopters from Tenerife and Gran Canaria helping out, and two planes are on their way from the mainland.

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