Wine Museum

The creation of the Wine Museum in Vila da Madalena must be understood as a historical inevitability. The organization of a museum on the theme of the vineyard is identified with the main economic activity of the community that has occupied this territory since its settlement. In Madalena all the favorable conditions are met for the construction of a museum of memories and agricultural technologies associated with wine, either by the extension and expression of the vineyard that dominates the landscape, or by the existence of a space that, for centuries, was dedicated to winemaking: the agricultural facilities that belonged to the Carmo Convent of the centuries: XVII-XVIII, summer mansion of Carmelite friars based in the city of Horta, architectural symbol of the opulent phase of the Verdelho Wine Cycle, on the island of Pico.

The privileged geographical location of the Wine Museum, the vineyard, the secular dragon trees, the Pico Canal, the sea and the mountain, the poetic and aesthetic dimension of the place, the sober presence of secular volcanic stone architecture in serene harmony with a new architectural language, so characteristic of America's Azorean emigration and appealing and dynamic museography, together with the sweeping force of the human epic associated with the historic Verdelho Cycle, they have transformed this place into an important pole of tourist-cultural development from Pico island.

With the restoration, reuse and cultural enhancement of these spaces, it is intended to preserve the cultural and environmental heritage of the former Carmelite estate in Madalena (the buildings, the vineyard and the dragon trees) and the memories associated with the vineyard culture and the production of the wine on Pico island.