High on a hill with panoramic views over the surrounding Tenerife landscape stands Bodegas Monje, a 15-hectare vineyard-cum-restaurant that dates back to 1750 and has been in family ownership for many generations.
Located near the coast in the northern part of the Spanish island close to La Laguna, Tenerife’s old capital, the restaurant, reached through a wine and souvenir shop, is housed in a spacious open room with terracotta floor, sloped tiled ceiling, sturdy wooden furniture and decorative hanging lanterns. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer clear view across a large paved outdoor terrace to the sloping vineyard beyond.
Framed family photographs hang on the walls and a glass cabinet is filled with awards and trophies won by the vineyard and restaurant over the decades.
In addition to around 200,000 litres of wine per year, red, white and rose, Bodegas Monje also brews its own ale, an American pale variety called Enoloca. Curious to taste it, I was impressed by its full body and zesty flavour.
As for the wines, not surprisingly there is no shortage of choice with island grape varieties including listan negro and blanco, tintilla, negramoll, vijariego and marmajuelo. Vintages on the menu date back to 1993. I chose the Monje de Autor Resrva 2012, a full bodied red named in tribute to Canarian poet Nestor Martin-Fernandez de la Torre. Interestingly, my companion chose one of the vineyard’s ‘underwater’ wines aged for six months in the ocean. Dark red in colour, she described it as having “an ocean nose’ with strong tannins and a dark fruit aftertaste.
As for the food.
The name of my starter, lollipops of saffron-flavored octopus, was simply too intriguing to miss. And it didn’t fail to surprise, arriving skewered with potato slices on thin sticks inserted in a long curved wooden board, ten small cuts of the sea creature, the meat soft and tender, with a traditional mojo dipping bowl of parsley, paprika, garlic, wine vinegar and green pepper.
My companion opted for a classic Tenerife watercress soup and, being a poet at heart, described it as ‘tasting of Spring, of new life.’ I expected it to be light but instead it was a thick, hearty soup. To tame its exuberance of green, three small bowls accompanied it. One contained gofio, a Canarian flour made from roasted grains, which added a nutty flavor. Another was filled with sweet fresh cheese granting a warm, cozy taste and the third was onion bits, which my companion said, ‘helped stir the senses.’
My main, the special of the week, was goat slowly roasted in a gigantic clay oven with cumin, onion and sweet chilly pepper. Since it is a relatively tough meat, goat is notoriously difficult to cook requiring it to be tenderised slowly at low temperatures and with a lot of moisture as low fat content means that it can dry out and toughen quickly. Suffice not to say, my meat slid off the bone gently and filled my mouth with umami flavours.
My companion chose black pork, or ‘cochino negro,’ a generous mound of pulled meat threads, tenderly stacked with slices of confit of chayote, a popular island fruit, accompanied by the island’s prized black potatoes and green almond mojo. She described it as ‘a hearty, satisfying plate, a bridge across generations, creating a sense of family gathered together for a hearty meal.’
As for desserts, mine was the common island fruit, figs, sweetened with the vineyard’s own white wine, or vino padre, with generous dollops of vanilla ice-cream while my companion chose Canarian custard cream in a glass.
Adopting an innovative approach to its wine tasting tours, Bodegas Monje has launched several captivating live events to showcase the vineyard - one is naughtily entitled ‘Wine & Sex’ and the other is based on the infamous Prohibition era of the 1920s, both featuring actors and actresses in period costumes. A new dramatic show is based on the legend of ‘Dracula.’ It also hosts an art gallery in its intimate underground ‘Wine Club.’
