ALENTEJO, A LAND FINELY AGED LIKE WINE ACCORDING TO THE NY TIMES

Eli Gottlieb reports on his trip through the Alentejo for 5 days. An amazing portrait of one of the world's finest wine regions!

In the NY Times article, Eli Gottlieb reffers to the Alentejo as one of the top wine destinations in the world. "The next five days we’d travel among medieval whitewashed villages, rolling hills, mountain forts and a constellation of sparklingly modern vineyards." Read the full article here.

Wine was obviously a hot topic: "When asked the difference between Portuguese wine and that of other nations, Mr. Duarte didn’t hesitate. “The wines of Chile and Argentina are too sweet,” he said. “You think Spain, you think the tempranillo grape. Well, we don’t use the same grapes everyone else does. We have 315 different grape varieties, many of them unique to us. We’ve also taken many French grapes and adopted them for our own use.”

PHOTO BY GUSTAVO FIGUEIREDO FOR LIVE LOVE RIDE

But the gastronomy of the region deserves a special reference, too: "But a last word about that pig. The animal reigns at the top of the food chain on Alentejo menus, consumed in all its parts down to nearly its eyelashes. The local specialty is porco preto, or black pig, a member of the swine family fed mostly on the acorns that fall from cork trees and presented in sausage, bacon and chops and as an enriching agent in a variety of stews. The animal’s intense depth of flavor is due partly to that acorn-heavy diet, and as a bonus, those acorns imbue the flesh with oleic acid, the same heart-friendly ingredient found in olive oil."

Read the full article here.

If you want to know more about riding through the Alentejo and discovering it's natural beauties, gastronomy, wines and traditions, have a look at our 7 day programme, where you'll get the opportunity to experience the Alentejo way of living.