ALENTEJO

THE FARM ESTATE

SÃO LOURENÇO DO BARROCAL

The silvery leaves of a 2,000-year-old olive tree are still budding green fruits. Its trunk curves around one of the Neolithic dolmens that scatter the landscape and line the drive to the São Lourenço do Barrocal estate. Perhaps, I muse, a shepherd sat here, chewing olives from this very tree and discarding the stones, back when the wheat fields fed Rome.

“Olive oil is very important here,” explains Luis Lobato de Faria, an archaeologist and my guide for the estate’s olive-grove walk. “Every family has an olive tree, and olive oil was once used to light the streetlamps of the regional capital, Évora. There’s evidence of olive oil production here going back 3,000 years.”

While the lighting in Alentejo is now electric, wheat fields, olive groves and vineyards still dominate the region’s plains. It’s a place of extremes: by