Back in July, I was invited to travel to the Alentejo region of Portugal with my friends Isabelle and Oscar. Little did I know what a great few days it was going to be when I decided to accompany them.
Isabelle drove us which was a real treat. I don't often get to travel by car in Portugal so that made the trip even more fun! Oscar and Gabriel followed on their motorcycles. The first day we went to Portalegre, where we stayed for one night in a beautiful former convent. The next day, Oscar had arranged for us to visit his friend Rui, who is a winemaker. We had an incredible time with Rui. First, he took us to Pedra Basta, where he produces his wines. He treated us to the best wine-tasting I've ever experienced consisting of a large variety of both red and white wines. Then, we drove to a higher elevation to see the Terrenus vineyards where a lot of the grapes are grown.
It was a fantastic day due to the company, including friends from the U.S., Portugal, Denmark, and France and the chance to see parts of Portugal I had never seen before. It was a real pleasure to spend time with Portuguese people and try out my language skills too.
Our day included an amazing lunch by the Rio (river) Sever in a town called Portagem. Looking back on that weekend, it was such great exposure to Portuguese culture in terms of the landscape, wine, food, history, language, and the wonderful people who were with us.
Now, I buy Rui's wines whenever I have the opportunity to...and feel so lucky that I got to visit Pedra Basta. By the way, "Pedra Basta" means: enough stones...and it refers to the many stones found in the land around the vineyards there.
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