Until recently, Portugal's cultural reference points - golf courses in the Algarve, and Mateus Rosé - weren't exactly aspirational. But with Mourinho, overcoated, excitingly surly and rugged, in one man embodying more style and machismo than the entire Italian peninsula, surely now anything is possible.
"Has there been a Mourinho effect on the sale of Portuguese wine?" I ask Danny Cameron, outgoing chairman of the Association of Portuguese Wine Importers.
He smiles wryly. "Not exactly, though when Mourinho gave Sir Alex Ferguson a bottle of 1964 Barca Velha [the iconic Douro red], we generated more wine PR than we managed in the whole of Euro 2004. But mostly we are plugging away with what you might call marginally unhinged enthusiasm. Portugal accounts for only about 0.33% of wine sold in restaurants and bars, and just over 1% sold elsewhere in this country. But it is steadily getting better as people start to realise what the country has to offer, especially in the £6-£9 range."
What's best about Portuguese wine - obscure and tongue-twisting grape varieties, a "real" and untamed taste, rather than that of a "commercial product" - can be offputting to some, but I kind of like that. It is, therefore, slightly galling for me, as a Leeds supporter, to have to report that the directors of Chelsea FC recently put a Portuguese wine on their corporate hospitality menu. According to the bemused importer, "It's been going so fast, everyone's taken aback. The producer, Quinta do Vallado, is only small and can't quite believe what's happening."
There are four great Portuguese wines below. Buy them before the Chelsea fans get to them.
Casa de Saima 2003, Bairrada
Description: When the word 'alive' appears in my tasting notes, it's always a good sign, and this wine is one with which you could almost converse. Tantalisingly perfumed, with firm but elegant tannins bound with a forest berries taste.
Drink it with: Deep, rich winter stews, black pudding, or chewy chunks of salami.
Score: 4/5
Quinta de Azevedo 2005, Vinho Verde
Description: This dry, prickly, sharply acidic thirst-slaker is a model vinho verde from northern Portugal. In summer it's a casual hammock or pavement cafe drink; in autumn and winter, it needs a lounging-round-the-kitchen attitude.
Drink it with: Nibble at roasted almonds and move on to salad and not-too-meaty white fish.
Score: 4/5
Vale da Clara Douro Tinto 2004
Description: A hearty but surprisingly refreshing blend of port grapes from the steep, hot slopes of the Douro Valley. The wine is unoaked, and veers towards a savoury swell rather than stickily ripe character.
Drink it with: Lamb tagine.
Score: 3/5
Quinta do Vallado Reserva 2004, Douro
Description: The elder sibling to the wine the Chelsea set have been necking, and a trophy winner at International Wine Challenge. Made from port grapes, this is solid, complex, earthy, burnished and delicious.
Drink it with: José Mourinho or, failing that, a very fine joint of beef.
Score: 4.5/5
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