Here's a challenge for all our avid newsletter readers, find us a Portuguese wine selection in the Country that beats Baggot Street Wines & Spirits. We frequently boast about our selection of wines from every region in the world but Portugal is one of our Crown Jewels. All that to say we're passionate about Portugal and it's wines and think it's simply one of the best wine regions offering some of the best value wines in the World.

We can't get enough of the quality and variety that Portugal has to offer and we'd love to offer you a quick guide to all thing Portuguese wine. Naturally we do not have enough space to go into the depth that the topic deserves, but we'll do our best to offer a quick overview and suggest some excellent wines from our four favourite regions. The fortified wine Port is perhaps the most famous of the wines of Portugal but for the email we'll focus on still red and white styles that we believe capture the essence of Portugal.

A region of rolling plains, the Alentejo has a relatively smooth and flat landscape that stretches across almost a third of mainland Portugal.

The white varieties include Antão Vaz, Arinto and Roupeiro, as well as the now undervalued Diagalves, Manteúdo, Perrum and Rabo de Ovelha. The red varieties are Alfrocheiro, Alicante Bouschet, Aragonez, Castelão and Trincadeira, and sometimes Moreto, Tinta Caiada and Tinta Grossa.

Reds from Alentejo are often rich, ripe and jammy, while the whites have tropical fruit flavour and plenty of acidity. We have a great example of both styles below:

Surrounded by mountains in all directions, with very nutrient poor granite soils, the Dão vineyards extend through the landscape, scattered among pine forests at different altitudes, from 1,000 metres in the Serra da Estrela to 200 metres in the lower areas.

The most important white grape varieties are Bical, Cercial, Malvasia Fina, Rabo de Ovelha and Verdelho, in addition to Encruzado. For red grapes, Touriga Nacional, Alfrocheiro, Jaen and Tinta Roriz dominate, as well as the undervalued Baga, Bastardo and Tinta Pinheira.

The Dão wines are typically very food friendly, with an exceptional acidity and complex and delicate scents. It fits perfectly with the local food, like Serra da Estrela cheese. We've got some delicious examples below:

Douro is one of the wildest and most rugged regions in Portugal, carved by the valley of the Douro River into the schist soils.

Nowhere else in Portugal is man's intervention in the landscape so evident, It's visible in the thousands of terraces scattered throughout the region, defying gravity on the steep slopes where the vines are planted. For its beauty and importance, the region was recognized by UNESCO as a "World Heritage Site".

Douro is the heart of Port wine production, perhaps the main ambassador of Portuguese wines, but the still wines of the Douro have been growing steadily in the last two decades and have gained considerable acclaim and recognition. In this way the Douro is becoming much more than just amazing Port as you'll see in the wines below:

It is one of the most original and distinctive regions of Portugal, marked by an extreme Atlantic influence, in a green and humid landscape, with cool temperatures and abundant rainfall.

The dominant white grape varieties are Alvarinho, Arinto (locally known as Pedernã), Avesso, Azal, Loureiro and Trajadura, while the red varieties are Borraçal, Brancelho, Espadeiro and Vinhão.

White wines from Vine Verde are particularly aromatic, clear and refreshing as anyone who's traveled to Portugal can attest to: