Tasting and dinner at Hapetite with Lagoalva wines

Thursday 26th September 2019

Bon Hapetite for AWS or AWS goes ancient and modern
The grape harvest may be all but over in the Algarve but further north it’s still in full swing and so the Algarve Wine Society appreciated the effort made by winemaker Diogo Campilho in coming south from Lagoalva winery in the Tejo to present his wines at a dinner held on Thursday 26 September. In a first for the Society, the venue was Hapetite, located just outside the walls of the old town in Faro. Built originally for the church as a place to collect fruit in 1742, Hapetite’s premises then changed roles and became a well-known glass workshop, before it was eventually converted to a restaurant in 2016.

By contrast, the estate of Quinta da Lagoalva merely dates back to the 19th century, but as a winery it certainly has a long pedigree, having started production in 1888. So it was intriguing to hear from Diogo Campilho, the most recent member of his family to carry forward the winemaking tradition, that he has brought back to the Tejo the benefit of experience gained studying and working in Australia, and that the philosophy of the winery is to use both Portuguese and international varieties to express the unique terroir of the estate, located less than 50km from the Atlantic ocean.

Hapetite also has an ethos of blending traditional Algarvian dishes with modern cuisine and so the event proved to be a superb marriage of food and wine as the 70 AWS members present enjoyed dishes like Arroz de Peixe with Lagoalva Sauvignon Blanc and Secretos de Porco Preto with soy sauce, accompanied by Lagoalva Castelão e Touriga. Also present at the dinner was Sérgio Pereira of Misterwine, distributors of Lagoalva wines in the Algarve, who was certainly correct when he anticipated that members might be keen to buy these delicious wines, and had brought a substantial stock with him, only to find it snapped up before the end of the meal! The AWS next meets on 23 October for a tasting and dinner at Quinta da Ria near Tavira.