It’s an essential ingredient of Portuguese cuisine so why not seek out the different flavours of each of the Protected Designation of Origin regions: Moura, the Inner Alentejo and the Northern Alentejo?

In Moura, there’s an olive oil museum— the nineteenth-century Lagar de Varas do Fojo — where you can learn all about how the oil was produced using traditional methods. At the end of your visit, satisfy your hunger in Serpa with some pigs' trotters with coriander, generously soaked in the ambrosial liquid, and you’ll find out why the expression "as fine as Moura olive oil" came into being.

Continue on the olive oil route through the Inner Alentejo region to Portel, Vidigueira, Cuba, Alvito, Viana do Alentejo, Ferreira do Alentejo or Beja. In any of these boroughs, you will find a shop with its doors wide open where you will be able to sample a mature olive oil with the slightly bitter taste of an apple or fig.

To taste the scented olive oil produced in the northern Alentejo, be sure to visit one of the many olive producers in the region. From Alandroal to Vila Viçosa, linger a while and take in the landscape dotted with olive trees.