From 06-04-2023 until 09-04-2023

Pairing – Combining wine and chocolate – Anyone has tried to pair a glass of wine with their favourite chocolate known it can be challenging. That happens because of the chocolate features: strong flavour, with high fat and sugar grade. They overload the taste buds, making harmonizing chocolate with other products a hard task. However, by the end of the day we think that this task will have become easier.

• Arrival to the estate – Home sweet Home, as chocolate. The voyage through the world of chocolate begins here.

• Visit to the estate and chocolate and wine tasting – Come and get to know the estate in our vintage 4×4, ending with a visit to the winery – here we will entrust you with the secret to best pair your favourite chocolate and our wines.

• Dinner – Chocolate, whose origin goes back to pre-Columbian civilisations in Central America, is food made from the fermented and toasted bean of cocoa. From the time of the Discoveries, it was taken to Europe, where it became popular since the XVII and XVIII centuries. We prepared a menu inspired by chocolate and its origins.

The magic in the common – Forastero, the cocoa variety responsible for about 90% of the world’s production, is produced since the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese explorers to the Amazonic Basin and Equator. It is most commercial variety of chocolate, being the most easily cultivated and resistant to disease, although it is bitter. Taken at the end of XVII century to countries of Western Africa – Sao Tome, in the western coast of Africa, Java, Sumatra and Papua, in Asia, are the places where we can find this cocoa of variety.

• Breakfast – An Aztec legend tells that the God of Vegetation, Quetzacoatl, came to Earth with a cocoa tree and taught mortals how to grow the fruit and make a drink with its seeds – giving birth to hot chocolate. This time, we suggest that you pair your breakfast with this creamy drink.

• BTT trail ride – Because we understand that resisting to so many delicacies at breakfast, we suggest balancing your body with a BTT ride through the estate’s tracks.

• Light lunch – After such an intense training session we need refill energies, always with the estate’s organic produce that we are so proud of.

• Chocolate Workshop – Discover different types and understanding how chocolate is produced is practically a trip around the world and through time. Not gluttony, knowledge.

• Dinner – The Friday that precedes Easter is generally celebrated with delicious dishes. We will not let go of the date or the tradition. An allusive menu will be waiting for you in our restaurant.

The secret is in union – The Trinitarian variety appeared after a natural disaster that devasted the criollo plantation in the island of Trinidad, in the Caribbean. After the incident, the producers decided to grow Forastero. Its cross with the remaining criollo cocoa trees originated a hybrid trinitarian, which is a perfect crossing of the two cocoa varieties. On one side it is more resistant to disease, like the Forastero, but also offers fine and delicate flavours like Criollo. Today, the trinitarian cocoa grows in countries that used to cultivate criollo, like Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, and in areas of South-eastern Asia and Brazil.

• Breakfast – Because it has been proven that chocolate heightens the feeling of wellbeing, we needed to make sure that this feeling was present since dawn. Our traditional pancakes are wonderful, but don’t forget to taste the special recipe with chocolate sauce by our Pastry Chef, Cintia Koerper.

• Easter Eggs hand painting Workshop – As celebration for the start of Spring, some cultures used to trade eggs – symbols of fertility and reborn. Whether for its meaning or to test your artistic skills, come and be a part of tradition.

• Rural lunch – When celebrating spring, nothing is more adequate than doing it during a picknick among the vineyard and in full harmony with Nature.

• Easter folar workshop – There is no Easter without folar! Come learn the best recipe and the best technique to surprise your family with Malhadinha’s Easter folar recipe!

• Dinner – Easter is celebrated all around the glove. Travel with us in an expedition through the World, in a menu inspired by emblematic dishes in countries the trinitarian is king: Mexico’s guacamole, San Tome’s Calulu and Brazil’s Cocoa and Cupuaçu.

In the tropical regions of the globe, fruits are harvested during almost all year round. They are opened afterwards to extract seeds that are the size of an almond, surrounded by a sugary pulp. Then the seeds are fermented during about a week. Here, the cocoa’s aroma starts developing. Then comes the drying process, almost always sundried, so that the beans are well preserved. The cocoa is then collected, bagged and then ready to be sent to chocolate factories. Once there, the first step is to clean the beans to eliminate leaves, small branches, and rocks. Afterwards the cocoa is toasted, it is on this phase that the chocolate aroma. Without further ado, the beans are smashed so that they are separated from the shell that encases them. Then, they are ground to form cocoa paste. At that moment you  can mix different products of different origins to obtain more stable characteristics. From that point on, the past can have to destinations, cocoa butter can be obtained from it, or it can be turned into chocolate.

• Breakfast – Wake up to the morning freshness. Feel the day’s first aromas and relish in a breakfast full of fruits, jams, natural juices, and of course, the folar you helped prepare the day before.

• Egg hunt – The rabbit figure is symbolically related to Easter because this animal represents fertility – like the eggs. Throughout the ages, a little around the world, many civilisations created their own traditions arounds these elements, and that was how the Easter Egg hunt came to be, a common tradition throughout the world. We didn’t want to let this traditional slip by and prepared a fun Easter Egg hunt for the children.

• Easter Lunch – Easter is the season that symbolizes the family’s union around the table, and of course, the delicious food that complements that get-together. We prepared a menu where you can find the classic lamb, of the regional Merino variety, roasted in wood oven, that will delight the whole family, without forgetting, of course, the chocolate!

Check-out.