‘Magnificent Madeira’ Film; Faja dos Padres Cable Car ride; 25 Fontes Calheta; Weekend Yellow weather alert ; Madeira’s levada paths one of the 8 Most Unique Walking Paths in the World; ‘Madeira, The Island Vineyard’ Book; Noël Cossart; Emanuel Berk; Portuguese photographer Nuno Sá wins another Photography Award; Hotel Calheta Beach wins environmental award ‘Umwelt Champion’ from the German Tour Operator TUI

International, Portugal, Madeira News from Paul Abbiati:

Weekend Yellow weather alert for rain, wind and sea

Yellow weather alerts have been issued for Madeira region for rain, wind and sea

To keep up to date with the state of the weather see the Instituto de Meteorologia website:

http://www.dnoticias.pt/actualidade/madeira/230561-capitania-emite-aviso-de-agitacao-maritima-forte

Film posted on Youtube by Pavel Masek from the Czech Republic. Thanks Pavel! Its excellent…please make some more films of Madeira region!

‘Madeira, The Island Vineyard’ Book

“Of all the books ever written about Madeira, the most admired is Noël Cossart’s Madeira, The Island Vineyard. Noël was the fourth, and final, generation of his family to manage Madeira’s most important wine producer, Cossart, Gordon. He entered the firm in 1925 and managed it from 1936 until 1953, when economic conditions forced him to sell the firm’s assets to the Madeira Wine Association.
When Noël retired from the wine business in 1976, his old friend from Christie’s, Michael Broadbent, convinced him to draw on his long experience and deep family archives to write Madeira, The Island Vineyard, which was published by Christie’s in 1984.
Noël’s book was very warmly received.”

From: The Rare Wine Co Site: http://www.rarewineco.com/index.htm

Noël Cossart

“Noël Cossart was the last of his family to head Cossart, Gordon & Co., which for more than 150 years was the largest and most important producer of Madeira. Born on the island of Madeira in 1907, he joined the company after his father’s death in 1925, and managed the firm from 1936 until, under economic pressure, he sold its assets to the Madeira Wine Association in 1953.

For years after the sale, Noël continued to play an active role in marketing Cossart, Gordon wines and by the 1960s he began to contemplate writing a book on Madeira. That dream was realized in 1984 with the publication of his Madeira, The Island Vineyard by Christie’s Wine Publications.

Noël’s book had what previous works lacked: an insider’s perspective, as he drew on his decades of personal experience as well as family business archives dating back to the 1700s. For more than a quarter of a century, Madeira, The Island Vineyard has stood as one of the essential works on Madeira and its wines.

Noël Cossart died in England in 1987.”

Emanuel Berk

“Born in 1949, and founder of The Rare Wine Co., Emanuel Berk began importing Madeira into the United States in 1989, just two years after Noël Cossart’s death.

Inspired by the wine’s unique qualities and its historic place in American culture, he made The Rare Wine Co. America’s largest importer of fine Madeira and the largest stockholder of old and rare Madeiras outside the island itself.

Mannie has long been a student of Madeira’s history, and he has written and spoken extensively about the wine and its place in America. Previous written works to his credit include A Century Past: A History of Madeira in America and Antebellum Nectar: Madeira and Champagne in pre-Civil War Charleston and the South.

His advocacy of Madeira has helped restore this historic wine to prominence in the United States, reversing more than a century of declining popularity.”

8 of the Most Unique Walking Paths in the World includes Madeira’s levada paths

..Set some 600 miles from Lisbon, the leafy island of Madeira has a reputation among acrophobes as having some of the most vertiginous trails around.

This rugged isle is networked with some 1,000 miles of irrigation channels (or levadas) that are bordered by a narrow level-walking path. These aqueducts have been hewn into cliffs and solid rock producing claustrophobic tunnels and paths clinging at times to the edge of sheer chasms.

Film of Madeira’s Levada Walks from Adventure Kingdom

However, there are also plenty of more gentle levadas, including those coursing through Madeira’s native laurisilva forest. Even families can walk Levada dos Balcoes that starts in the mountain hamlet of Ribeiro Frio and terminates at a dizzying overlook of jagged high peaks and deep verdant valleys. Another levada starting from the same hamlet takes slightly more adventurous walkers to Portello, a four-hour trek past heather, lily of the valley trees and wild orchids. Madeira Explorers leads myriad levada walks…

link: http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/11-10/8-of-the-most-unique-walking-paths-in-the-world.html

Hotel Calheta Beach wins environmental award ‘Umwelt Champion’ from the German Tour Operator TUI

Hotel Calheta Beach in Calheta region, Madeira has won an environmental award ‘Umwelt Champion’ from the German Tour Operator TUI. The hotel has risen 33 positions out of 100 hotels to position 54 for good environmental practices.

The popular Free white sand beaches in Calheta in Madeira

image from Wikicommons

link to article:
http://www.dnoticias.pt/impressa/diario/292010/economia/292089-hotel-calheta-beach-ganha-distincao-ambiental-da-tui

image from Diario Newspaper

Portuguese photographer Nuno Sá wins another Photography Award

Nuno Sá (Portugal)

‘Racing blue’ off the coast of Faial Island in the Azores

..Within minutes of lowering a container of bait into the sea, ‘a torpedo-shaped shark shot up from the deep blue below,’ says Nuno, alerted by the movement as well as the smell. Nuno’s boat was over a seamount off the coast of Faial Island in the Azores, being used by a research team from the University of the Azores studying the importance of such seamounts as possible mating areas for blue sharks.

Nuno’s aim was to illustrate the beauty of this top predator, built for speed. Though supposedly abundant, an estimated 20 million blue sharks are caught annually, either as bycatch or for their fins to supply the Asian food market. The likelihood is that the population is in fast decline…

Canon EOS 7D + Tokina 10-17mm lens; 1/250 sec at f9; ISO 160; Aquatica housing; Ikelite 160 strobes.

link: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/photo.do?photo=2732&category=6&group=1