Why is Portuguese wine so hard to find in European supermarkets?

Whenever I travel in Europe, I visit local supermarkets. It has become a habit: I want to see what is really on the wine shelf. On a recent trip to Denmark, I found wines from France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Chile and Argentina. From Portugal, there were only two Port wines.

Portugal makes excellent wine, with one of the best price-to-quality ratios in the world. So the problem is not quality. In my experience, it is the system.

1. Too much bureaucracy

Registering wines, approving labels and meeting different requirements can take far more time than it should, especially in some regions.

2. Export is harder than it should be

Compared with some neighbouring countries, exporting from Portugal often means more time, more paperwork and higher costs. For small wineries, that can be decisive.

3. Promotion abroad is uneven

Some wine regions in Europe give their wineries strong support to take part in international fairs. Many Portuguese wineries, especially small ones, still struggle to be seen abroad.

What Portugal needs

Portugal doesn't need to learn how to make better wine. It already does. What it needs is to help more people around the world discover it, and that starts with getting Portuguese wines onto foreign supermarket shelves.