WINE NOT!
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| MONJE WINERY |
Sage words of advice:
Never pass up an opportunity to drink wine, or beer, or sangria.
Here on the party
island of Tenerife your Traveling Teetotalers have fallen off the wagon,
between generous happy hours, and generally cheap drinks, with a pint of beer
going for €1.50, which is roughly $1.66 today. Even at the resort where one
would expect to pay a bit more, the Happy Hour deal of two drinks for the price
of one makes two-fisted drinking a reality. The sangria served at the Ocean
Breeze Bar at the Santa Barbara Golf and Ocean Resort, comes in large glasses
and costs just €5.00.
Thirsting to see more
of Tenerife, but now hesitant about renting a car for fear of similar roads
like those around the hilly switchback terrain of Masca, we booked an “Enogastronomic
Tour” that would take us to the north eastern part of Tenerife to a winery, a
wine museum and then lunch at a typical Canarian restaurant.
Janet booked the tour through Trip Advisor
and the tour operator was Glomar.
Our guide was an
enthusiastic young father who had emigrated to Tenerife from Venezuela. His
family had emigrated from Tenerife after WWII like many others to seek a better
life there, but with the recent strife in that country he decided to move back
to Tenerife with his Venezuelan wife and two children, aged 10 and 5.
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| AUDITORIO, SANTA CRUZ de TENERIFE |
We learned all that
within the first 10 minutes of the tour, which is a typical way to work the tip.
It was about a half hour drive to the lovely city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to
pick up the other four gentlemen on this tour. This was an added plus as we got
to see a bit of the leafy streets of the capital as well as the Auditorio, the
opera house whose design is similar to the Sydney Opera house.
The other four
gentlemen on our tour spoke no English, but through wine and some whiskey and
Janet’s ability to speak some Spanish, by the tour’s end we were all the best
of friends.
The extent of my
Spanish is Mas Cerveza!
That’s what we think
The men were from Lanzorate,
the easternmost and northernmost Canary Island, and just 80 miles off the coast
of Africa. They were on a boy’s vacation to Tenerife, sent here by their
wives.…at least that’s what we think we heard.
Anyway, they were
amateur winemakers themselves and they showed us a video of how the vines on Lanzorate
need to be set in shallow ditches to protect them from the damaging winds on
the island.
WINE
The 4 hour tour was
somewhat expensive at nearly $228, but included a tour of the Monje Winery in
El Sauzal on the north of Tenerife. Other than our van load there were several Spanish
speaking tourists and two pairs of Americans who came separately in their rental
vehicles. The tour started with some coffee in the restaurant on the premises
and then we walked onto a cold wind-swept lanai to view the vineyards that were
200 years old, a spin through the cellars and then into a “wine club” where Monje
offers some odd burlesque show called: “Wine and Sex”, we ignored the creep
factor and the for-sale manacles in the tasting room and drank our wine quickly,
trying to make light conversation with our Lanzorate friends and the Americans.
Truthfully the wine was good, and we purchased some bottles, but the burlesque
show, with the logo plastered everywhere was not.
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| NOT CREEPY |
To go on the tour at
Monje was free, but to attend a tasting which offered three different wines and
savory crackers between courses and chocolates at the end were available for
purchase. It was included in our tour package.
MONJE WINERY
MORE WINE
One American couple at
Monje had an AirBnB near our next stop and they said they went to the Museum of
Wine daily for their bottles and recommended a number of vintners. They said
the staff at the museum was knowledgeable about all the wines from Tenerife.
Set in an old hacienda,
there were self-guided displays of the different parts of the wine making
process and outside there was an old wine press, but we had already seen much
of this at Monje so we breezed through and took a table with the 4 guys from
Lanzorate and had more wine and then bought more wine to take home.
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| JANET AND HER DRINKING BUDDIES |
On the grounds there was
also a museum of honey and a restaurant. The museums were free, except for the
tastings which were part of the tour package.
LUNCH and more wine
The best part of tours
is that they take you places you would never find on your own if not familiar
with the land or haven’t done a lot of research to support your travels.
We had a traditional
Canary Island lunch at Guachinche Como en Casa in San Cristobal de La Laguna.
It was a popular local restaurant that we would not have found on our own.
Lively
and noisy and open to the elements, except for a canopy, roosters strutted around
the grounds and in among the tables, presumably looking for the hens, but they
were part of the menu.
Served family style we had expansive platters of grilled
chicken, beef, pork and sausages and goat served in a stew with Canarian
potatoes, small and sprinkled with salt. Several carafes of red wine were placed
on the long table we were seated at as well as several plates of grilled goat cheese
wedges. Each wedge had either a red or green mojo sauce on it or a blackberry
jam. Mojo is the ubiquitous condiment served with all meals, made with green or
red chilies, sort of like a salsa.
At the end I purchased
a round of drinks for everyone and we drove our new Lanzorate friends back to
Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Thanks for reading
Love Janet and greg
© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj
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