Herdade do Esporão calls Alentejo home, and we can literally say that the place is literally built on history. While many budding wine geeks know that Portugal is also the home of one of wine’s most iconic packaging ingredients – cork – fewer know that Alentejo itself is the spiritual home of cork production for Portugal (which puts it in the running as spiritual home of cork production for the entire world).

And even fewer know that, in terms of quality, Alentejo also rivals global counterparts like Italy and South America in production of another epicurean staple: olive oil. Let’s take a closer look at both of this little worlds within worlds…

Getting corked in Alentejo

Cork has been harvested from Quercus suber cork oak in Alentejo for at least three hundred years (and you thought you’d spent a long time at your job!). To get an idea of how important the industry is to Portugal, consider this: about eight percent of Portugal’s entire land mass is devoted to growing the stuff (and cork is Portugal’s most important export, accounting for roughly sixteen percent of its total foreign trade income)!

Cork’s role in the wine biz is, at this point, practically legendary. While other viable means of topping off a wine are available (in synthetic corks and screwcaps), none of the alternatives have quite the same cache factor yet. And cork closures have withstood one of wine’s most important tests: the test of time; cork allows tiny amounts of oxygen into a bottle of fine wine, helping it develop slowly and gracefully, sometimes over many decades.

The bark of the cork oak is harvested during the Summer from trees which then eventually re-grow their outer “casing” and so it’s an inherently sustainable process (trivia alert: cork oak is the only known tree whose bark can be harvested in this way without damaging the plant).  There’s some bite behind the bark (ha-ha!)when it comes to protecting this important industry, as well – Portuguese law forbids stripping the oak bark more than once every nine years, in order to help ensure the trees are properly and sustainable protected during farming.

Much like the traditional food-treading process still used for some wine production in the region, cork harvesting hasn’t given over to too much modernization. The most efficient process for harvesting the cork bark remains the one that’s been in use for centuries: skilled workers do it by hand, primarily using axes that are handmade locally in Alentejo, and the industry employs nearly 60,000 people. Each tree provides enough bark to produce about 4,000 wine bottle corks.

That’s a lot to think about the next time you’re pulling the cork on a bottle of tasty Monte Velho, but when employed in moderation your new-found cork trivia will probably impress whoever is lucky enough to be sharing that bottle with you!

Oiled up

Because of its fertile soil and warm climate, Alentejo is often called “the bread basket of Portugal” and has an abundance of agriculture, one of the standouts of which is arguably its olive oil, which is world-class.

Esporão's Olive Oil selection

Olive trees came to Portugal with the Romans, who spread the plants throughout the Iberian peninsula during the Bronze Age (how’s that for an established agricultural endeavor?). Portugal accounts for only a little over one percent of the world’s olive oil production, but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in gourmet-level quality, and several PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) zones have been established within the country (including Alentejo) to protect quality levels and production techniques. Alentejo olive oil tends to have golden or greenish color tinges, with a ripe and green olive fruit aromas and hints of apple and fig, which give an impression of slight, fruity sweetness. In other words, it’s food geeks’ olive oil, indulgent and ready for prime time.

True to Esporão’s tradition-meets-modern approach, their olive oil is 100% Portuguese from a long-established region, but employes modern, temperature-controlled techniques to press and extract the oil and ensure its cleanliness throughout the production process (all the way down to humidity and water controls). The olive varieties used include Vulgar, Cordovil de Serpa, Cobrançosa and Verdeal Alentejana, each imparting different nuances of color, flavors and aromas, and much of the production is Extra Virgin (meaning that the oil is extracted without any chemical products, and the acidity of the oil is less than 0.8%).

Esporão’s olive oil offerings are diverse, including the rustic, flavorful SELECÇÃO, the fresh and fruity GALEGA, the food-friendly and versatile DOP MOURA, and (the author’s personal favorite) grassy and slightly bitter CORDOVIL (real gourmands are going to want to try to get their hands on that one).

Of course, you don’t need to know any of that to enjoy the taste of Portuguese olive oil, or the numerous possible health benefits it provides (such as being a rich source of antioxidants, potentially helping to prevent diseases, improve digestion, skin and reduction of inflammation…). But if you do end up getting your hands on some it, just be sure not to dazzle your dinner guests too much with your newly-acquired olive oil smarties, okay?