This is the first of three articles by Tam on this captivating southern Portuguese region. See the tasting notes and learning to love cork.
In Lisbon, they raise an eyebrow when you mention the Alentejo; then with eyebrow still at a bemused angle, they warn you: 'everything in the Alentejo is very, very, very slow'.
Not quite everything. The little Beja airport, plonked in the middle of nowhere, is square, awkwardly shiny new, and disconcertingly empty; peopled in the main by eyelid-drooping guarda. It is home, however, to the world's fastest luggage carousel. To wrest a suitcase off this...