Fogo is the only island in Cape Verde with wine and coffee. Our coffee plantation visit fell through, but we were able to make two wine stops within the Pico do Fogo caldera. The wine and coffee industries on Fogo started back in 1870 when grapevines were introduced and the coffee was exported to Portugal.

I was not shocked about the grapes. We grow grapes on our farm in California and after two or three years, we do not irrigate our grapes as they are quite drought tolerant. But I was not expecting to see the vineyards that we saw. Their vineyards look vastly different from our own. You will also see that the most recent lava flow nearly reached this vineyard. The grapes are in rows, but each vine is a substantial distance apart from the next vine. That's due to the minimal amount of rain here on Fogo. They also have no trellising at all in their vineyards.

We stopped at the Casa Ramiro family wine and business, which is how it was described by our guide. They make and sell their own wine as well as wine made by some of the more established wineries on the island. Our guide described it as "export-quality" wine. He never said where it gets exported. It was okay.

We made a separate stop at a large winery just to see their production facilities. It was much bigger than we expected and the cellars and equipment looked modern and up-to-date. What I couldn't determine was where all the grapes come from to keep this winery in operation. The few vineyards that we saw were very sparse and didn't appear in very good shape. My guess is that there are much better vineyards on another part of the island.