The Lisboa five with a bottle of Casal Garcia Vinho Verde: crisp, faintly spritzy, and the standard Portuguese answer to salt and smoke.

Why Vinho Verde

Vinho Verde is the wine Portugal drinks with exactly this food. Its low alcohol and light prickle cut through the oil in the sardines and the fat in the chourico without competing with either. Casal Garcia is the benchmark bottle. Alongside it sit the five core items: Serra-style sheep cheese, chicken chourico, sardines in extra virgin olive oil, quince marmelada and palmiers.

The brands

These are the labels Portuguese families actually buy, not export brands invented for gift boxes. Bom Petisco tin their sardines and tuna on the Atlantic coast and are the tin most Portuguese households keep in the cupboard. Macarico cure the olives and bottle the piri-piri. Quinta dos Jugais make their honeys and cheese jams in the Serra da Estrela, the same mountains the sheep cheese comes from. Gallo has been pressing olive oil in Portugal for over a century. Every one of them sits on the shelf in a Portuguese grocer, which is the only test that really matters. You can read more about the regional food traditions behind them at Visit Portugal.

Packing and delivery

We pack this hamper in a medium matte-black gift box with a printed ivory-cream sleeve. Cheese and charcuterie travel chilled and keep well on arrival. We deliver across mainland UK, and we can send directly to the recipient with a handwritten card if you tell us what to write. See the rest of the range on our Portuguese food hampers page.

Serving suggestion

Take the cheese out of the fridge half an hour before you serve it, and cut it open rather than slicing it thin. Set the chourico part-sliced on a board. Open the tins and leave them in the tin, which is how they are eaten in Portugal. Put the marmelada beside the cheese, not with the sweets.