After an afternoon strolling in the Alfama district, what better way to spend our first evening in Lisbon than in a local wine bar (called, pragmatically enough, Wine Bar), sampling five local wines, an assortment of unpasteurized cheeses from local farms, and delicious, melt-in-the-mouth slices of Portuguese presunto (fatty pork from the neck and legs of black pigs fed acorns from cork trees)?
Clyde and I have been to Wine Bar once before — along with a lot of other people, given that it’s the nineteenth most popular eatery among Lisbon’s 2000 or so restaurants. But this was John and Jeri’s first time, and that made everything all the more magical for us.
I’m not a big wine drinker at all, but friend Kim R. would have envied how the owner, eager to share favorite vintages, kept bringing out bottle after bottle! I liked the “green wine,” a peachy, refreshing white wine made with the first grapes of the season … but my personal favorite was the smoky port (from Portugal, of course), which tasted of cherries and licorice.
All local, all hard to find outside Lisbon … and, therefore, even more of an adventure!
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