Mood indigo

Famous for the fortified wine vinted on its shores, the island of Madeira is as charming now as it was in the days when well-heeled Brits made it their favourite winter roost

NOEL Coward'S voice singing "Have some Madeira, m'dear" floats through my head as this rugged little island appears off the starboard bow. The early morning sun is unwrapping the day from tissues of mist that shroud this verdant mountainous outcrop, some 500 miles west of Casablanca.

Madeira is best approached by sea and a few years back I had the luxury of time to join the leisured classes on board a classic cruise ship visiting several Atlantic islands. Following an all-too-brief island tour we hurtled down cobbled streets in basketware toboggans, and after some frantic shopping, sailed away under thickets of shimmering stars in an expansive indigo-blue sky, promising faithfully to return.

Now I have kept that promise, this time arriving by air. "Are we here already?" says the dead ringer for Camilla Parker-Bowles sitting beside me as the landing gear is lowered. I glance out of the window and through a late-afternoon haze look down on a sea that is the light blue of a blackbird's egg, its texture that of ruffled taffeta. Moments later the rugged coastline gives way to the runway that is rising up to greet us. "I watched a nature programme last month and wanted to see for myself if this tiny island really is as pretty as it was on television," babbles my travelling companion as she gathers her straw hat and handbag, obviously eager to start her holiday.

As dusk descends, I drive along the high corniche that runs from the airport in the direction of the island's bustling capital. Funchal is spread out below me like a heap of jewels on crushed black velvet, while hundreds of tiny fishing boats just offshore looked like swarms of fireflies. A world away from a dreich Scottish January, it is warm, the evening air soft on my face.

Somewhere back in the mists of time, a volcano erupted and the archipelago of Madeira was formed. Rising from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean - 16,500 feet below sea level, to a height of 6108 feet at Pico Ruivo - its peaks cut through the clouds, while its ravines plunge to the sea. Discovered by Joao Goncalves Zarco for the Portuguese five centuries ago, the will and dedication of the settlers transformed this savage wilderness into "the pearl of the Atlantic". Clinging tenaciously to this rugged pearl is a population of 320,000 gentle, charismatic Madeirans.

My first encounter with a friendly local comes as I step out of my car and into the revolving door at the grandiloquent Reid's Palace. Greater men than I have spun through this door, including Winston Churchill and countless other dignitaries that made this peerless palace a favourite escape from the freezing winters of northern Europe. "Welcome to tranquillity," says the nattily attired flunky who takes my bags and escorts me through the marble lobby.

Built in 1891 by Scottish brothers William and Alfred Reid who arrived in Madeira with only #5 in their pockets, the hotel quickly became a rendezvous for ocean liner passengers on their way to the outreaches of the British colonies as well as acquiring a reputation as a roosting place for well-healed Brits. George Bernard Shaw took a spin around the dance floor, and in a rare moment of modesty, scrawled a note to the hotel's dance instructor: "To the only man who ever taught me anything."

As I sit on the terrace of this crusty remnant of British good taste, I survey a scene of indescribable beauty - Funchal's tranquil harbour is fringed with a mantle formed by a constellation of twinkling lights from dwellings scattered across the lower reaches of the mountainous backdrop. Dusk, twilight, nightfall, gloaming: the French refer to that dreamy transitional time of day by the delicious term entre chien et loup - between the dog and the wolf.

Gazing through the palms at the sea below as it gently seethes like a well-tempered cauldron, I spot my travelling companion perched improvidentially on a wrought iron chair. In the fading light she could be a double for Deborah Kerr in From Here To Eternity. The scene is complete.

This is not a holiday haven of territorial spats at the Club Paradiso or Bar Britannia where Union Jack T-shirts swell commensurably with copious quantities of the local hooch; nor is it an incarnation of the soma holiday described in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - a pleasure isle for the tired workers of Europe, where every excess seems permitted. Madeira is a more refined world; one for people who know how to enjoy themselves.

The following morning I set off to rediscover this island's colourful capital. My taxi driver hoots and lurches through the grid- locked traffic, his temperature rising faster than that of the sweltering streets before he swerves to a halt at the Mercado dos Lavradores (farmers' market). Located close to the waterfront in a teeming commercial district, this cavernous, three-tiered hall displays the entire bounty of Madeira in symmetrical, aromatic mounds: apples, oranges, pears, peaches, plums, pineapples, bananas, berries, custard apples, papayas, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, beans, peppers.

It's a Friday morning and every restaurateur and housewife in Funchal, it seems, is crowded into the lowest tier of this structure, yelling to be heard over the barking of fishmongers, who in turn are presiding over mounds of tuna fish and four-foot long, eel-like scabbard fish whose delicious white flesh belies their ghastly appearance.

Eschewing the company of the denizens of the deep and their captors, I headed for the Se Cathedral with its Moorish-inspired ceiling of carved cedarwood and ivory, illustrating the exotic discoveries of 15th century explorers. For an hour I wander along narrow walkways that thread between high-walled gardens and open out on to main thoroughfares lined with baroque green-shuttered buildings, overhung with mauve jacaranda blossoms. Red, orange and purple bougainvillaea petals carpet the black and white mosaic pavements as if in preparation for a festival.

Villages on the outskirts of Funchal exude a more tranquil lifestyle. In Camara de Lobos, where Winston Churchill spent his leisure time painting, I watched craggy fishermen putting out to sea in red, yellow and blue-striped boats that dot the horseshoe beach. In Camacha, the wicker capital of the island, I reflect on my previous visit to Madeira as craftsmen bent, braided, and twisted the willow rods into every shape and purpose imaginable, and decide to repeat the 15-minute, three-mile toboggan ride from Monte back down to Funchal. White-suited, straw-hatted "drivers" run alongside, manipulating the wicker chair sledge onto its runners set in the cobblestones with steering ropes. The speed was slow, the journey safe.

Since only 15 miles separate Funchal on the south coast and Santana on the north coast of this 37 mile-long island, I set out the next day for what I assume will be a gentle, relaxing drive. Following a narrow, two-lane road from the outskirts of Funchal I climb upwards into an agricultural region where grapevines cascade into steep ravines. Banana trees hang out over the long and winding road and traffic rips around serpentine curves at speeds more appropriate to medical emergencies than the transportation of fruit.

So much for a gentle drive. It is scenic certainly, relaxing not. My nippy Seat twists and plunges for what seems like hours through an endless labyrinth of canyons and gorges before Santana finally appears across a sunny bluff. The intense midday sun silhouettes the indigenous white-washed, A-framed thatched farmhouses against a tapestry of crops and flowers.

Settling into a comfy chair at a roadside inn, I unpack the hamper that Reid's have so thoughtfully prepared for me. This turns out to be more Fortnum and Mason than the typical Scotch egg and chicken drumstick offering. Around me a procession of hikers sets off along levadas - a network of irrigation channels carved into the hillsides. These wonderfully peaceful footpaths make for easy walking and offer a tranquil sojourn from which to appreciate the contrasts of this island. The faint gurgle of distant streams, combined with the crisp clean air, proves to be a powerful hypnotic and I drift off into my own private nirvana.

In mid-September, when the grape harvest is at its peak, the villages erupt in a picking frenzy - an immense communal effort that ends in crush rooms where mountains of sweet fruit are pressed into a purple, foamy juice. Hold up a glass to the light and it's as dark as ink. The perfume, mixed with cooking smells and the aroma of pine and eucalyptus trees, is intoxicating - even more so when you accept the villagers' offers of home-made wine. This is not the sweet, viscous stuff of legend, but vinho seco, a thinner, weaker beverage that ages for all of two months.

To taste the real McCoy I return to Funchal. Madeira wine is really the product of an oenological accident: 18th century island vintners discovered, during the course of exporting their brandy- fortified fermentations, that the product improved considerably after long voyages to Portuguese colonies in the steamy hulls of ships that crossed the equator - much like the Nordic drink Aquavit. So they created estufus, or heating houses, to duplicate the effects of a tropical sea voyage, and in these all Madeira is now heated during the maturation process.

Shakespeare's Falstaff admitted that he sold his soul for Madeira wine, and so fond of it was the Duke of Clarence that, faced with execution, he chose to be drowned instead in a vat of Malmsey - the sweetest of all Mardeiras. At the airport I think of the considerably cooler temperatures that await me the moment the aircraft door swings open at Edinburgh Airport and decide to purchase a bottle of the medium dry Verdelho. As I climb the aircraft steps I intone once again those camp words from that hoary old song: "Have some Madeira, m'dear."

Copyright 2001
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