Pick your kind of wine

Wine styles

White: Full-bodied

Higher in alcohol and richer in texture, these come from vineyards bathed in copious sun and high summer temperatures. There are soft, rich wines from the Alentejo, intense, minerally whites from the Douro, and full-bodied whites from Trás-os-Montes in the north east. Portugal has the advantage of numerous indigenous grape varieties that are able to keep their acidity in hot climates, and including these in a blend provides balancing freshness for rich white wines.

When to drink & Food pairings:

Full-bodied whites may be further enriched by fermentation in oak, which adds more fullness and texture, and/or maturation in oak, which may give richness and gentle oaky flavours, or sometimes dominant oak flavour. The oak-ageing of top-of-range Reserve whites from Dão and Lisboa (and occasionally elsewhere) rounds them out to full-bodied status. These are all wines for correspondingly bigger food flavours and richer food. Wine with very obviously oaky flavours are harder to match well with food in general, but they can be a good match for smoked foods.