| Portuguese
wines were first shipped to England in the 12th
century from the Entre Douro e Minho region (which
today includes modern Portuguese wine regions
such as the Douro and Vinho verde). In 1386, Portugal
and England signed the Treaty of Windsor which
fostered close diplomatic relations between the
two countries and opened the door for extensive
trade opportunities. The 1703 Methuen Treaty furthered
advanced English economic interest in Portugal
by reducing tariffs and give Portuguese wines
preferential treatment in the British wine market
over French wines. Around this time, the fortified
wine known as Port was increasing in popularity
in Britain. The lucrative trade in Port prompted
the Portuguese authorities to establish one of
the world's first protected designation of origin
when Sebastião José de Carvalho
e Melo, Marquis of Pombal established boundaries
and regulations for the production of authentic
Port from the Douro in 1756.
For
centuries after wards, Portuguese wines came to
be associated with Port (and to some extent Madeira
which was a popular drink of British colonies
across the globe, such as the American colonies.)
In the mid to late 20th century, sweet, slightly
sparkling rosé brands from Portugal (Mateus
and Lancers being the most notable) became immensely
popular across the globe-with the British wine
market again leading the way. In the mid-1980s,
Portugal's introduction to the European Union
brought a flood of financing and grants to the
stagnant Portuguese wine industry. These new investments
paved the way for upgrades in winemaking technology
and facilities. Renewed interest in the abundance
of unique Portuguese wine grape varieties shifted
focus to more premium wine production with a portfolio
of unique dry red and white wines being marketed
on a global scale.
Early
history
The
Roman province of Lusitania, which includes most
of modern day southern Portugal, is believed to
have been named as Lusus, son of the Roman god
of wine.
Viticulture
has existed on the Iberian Peninsula (home to
modern day Spain and Portugal) for thousands of
years. The Tartessians are believed to have cultivated
the first vineyards in the Tagus vineyards around
2000 BC. When the Phoenicians conquered the area
in the 10th century BC, they brought with them
grape varieties and winemaking techniques from
the Middle East and Carthage. The Ancient Greeks
settlers of the 7th century BC, furthered the
advance of viticulture in Portugal and left evidence
of their influence. In the area around the modern
day town of Alcácer do Sal, archeologists
have uncovered numerous pieces of cratera or Greek
vases used to dilute wine with water with gives
evidence of the Greeks drinking local Portuguese
wine.
When
the Romans reached Portugal, they named the area
Lusitania after Lusus, the son of the Roman god
of wine Bacchus. As they did before in Italy,
France, Germany and Spain, the Romans did much
to expand and promote viticulture in their settlements
in Portugal. Wines were produced across the territory
for both local consumption as well as export to
Rome. Vineyards extended further north and inland,
being firmly established in places such as Douro
by the end of Roman rule. Following the Fall of
the Roman Empire, local barbarian tribes sustained
the tradition and practice of viticulture in the
area. In the mid 9th century AD, Ordoño
the Gothic king of Asturias (in what is now northern
Portugal) granted vineyards and landowning privileges
around the town of Coimbra to a monastic Christian
order in the area. While most historian's accounts
of the history of wine following Roman rules suggest
that the Christian Church took the lead in preserving
viticulture across the former Roman empire, the
evidence suggest that, at least in Portugal, the
ruling authorities played an important role.
Relationship
with England
The
fortunes of the Portuguese wine industry has been
sharply influenced by the politics and conflicts
of England such as when the English Parliament
enacted an embargo on all French wine imports
in order to limit the income of Charles II (pictured).
Looking for an alternative source of wine, English
wine merchants started importing vast amounts
of Portuguese wine.
Being
a cool weather country, lacking favorable climate
for viticulture, England has always been a eager
market for exported wines from other regions.
Its close proximately to France, made French wines
a natural supply source for English thirst. However,
the convenience of those close borders also brought
with them a seemingly endless series of political
and military conflicts between the English and
French crowns. During periods of heated conflict,
English wine merchants were forced to look elsewhere
for trading partners and it was in this manner
that their attention was brought to the vineyards
of Portugal. Documents exist detailing Portuguese
wine shipments from the Minho region to England
occurring as early as the 12th century. These
wines, including those from the wet northern region
of modern day Vinho Verde, were often light and
astringent with noticeable acidity. While they
fulfilled a need, these wines did little to supplant
the popularity of French wines (particularly those
of Bordeaux) for English wine drinkers.
In
1386, the Portuguese and English signed the Treaty
of Windsor. The pact of mutual support fostered
a strong diplomatic alliance between the two countries
(and was still valid and applicable as of 2009).
Over the ensuing centuries, whenever England was
in conflict with other European powers (most notably
France), Portugal and its many vineyards were
there to fill in the gap caused by the disruption
of trade. Portuguese wine also served as a bargaining
chip in English politics. In 1679, the English
Parliament banned all imports of French wine as
a means of limiting the tariff income of Charles
II and forcing him to come to Parliament and ask
them directly for funds. Charles and the English
wine merchants turned again to Portugal, dramatically
increasing imports of Portuguese wines from 427
tuns in 1678 to averaging over 14,000 tuns (roughly
equivalent to 16 million liters or over 4 million
US gallons) a year by 1685. However, it is very
likely that not all these imported tuns were truly
Portuguese wines as some wine merchants found
their way around the French wine embargo by shipping
their wares in Portuguese wine barrels with forged
documentation.
While
the English wine market was lucrative, the relationship
was essentially monopolistic with the vast majority
of control in the hands of the English wine merchants.
Portuguese growers and wine producers had little
other avenues for trade with other countries and
thus prices were largely dictated by the English.
The 1703 Metheun Treaty further promoted English
interest in Portuguese wines. The treaty established
a system of preferential tariffs for Portuguese
wine, at the expense of wines from other countries.
It specifies that the tariffs for Portuguese wine
should never be more than two-thirds that of which
was levied on French wines. At the time, the levy
on French wines were roughly equivalent to £20
a barrel with the levies on Portuguese wines dropping
to around £7 a barrel. By 1717, Portuguese
wines accounted for more than 66% of all wine
imported into England while French wines imports
shrank to a mere 4%.
During
this period, fortified Portuguese wines such as
Port and Madeira were increasing in popularity
in the English/British market. In the Atlantic,
the Portuguese controlled island of Madeira was
a vital trading stop to British colonies in the
New World and beyond. The process of fortification
was discovered to enhance the flavor and stability
of wines on these long sea voyages. Madeira wine
became particularly popular in the American colonies,
with an established market that continued to thrive
even after the colonies gained independence from
Great Britain.
The
rise of Port
In
the 17th century, the English discovered a new
style of wine from among the steep vineyards of
the Douro Valley.
Of
all the wines most closely associated with Portugal,
and most reflective of the immense influence that
the British has had on the Portuguese wine industry,
it is Port. So close is the relationship that
wine writer Katherine MacNeil notes "If Portugal
is the mother of Port, Britain is certainly its
father". While there are many theories as
to the origin of the fortified wine known as Port,
one of the most prevalent is that of the 1678
visit by English wine merchants to a monastery
in the Portuguese town of Lamego located along
the Douro river. In search of new wines to ship
back to England, the merchants came across an
abbot in Lamego who was producing a style of wine
that the merchants had never encountered before.
While fortification of wine had been known for
centuries, the fortifying grape spirit was usually
added after fermentation, when the wine was already
fermented dry. The abbot of Lamego was fortifying
his wine during fermentation, which had the effect
of killing off the active yeast cells and leaving
the wine with high levels of residual sugar. This
method produced a very strong, alcoholic wine
with noticeable levels of sweetness that was very
successful in the English wine market.
In
1693, amidst another conflict with the French,
King William III of England imposed punitive levels
of taxation French wine imports. This very high
level of taxation, drove even more English wine
merchants to the Douro. The popularity of Port,
or "blackstrap" as it was sometimes
known because of its dark color and astringency,
continued to increase when the War of the Spanish
Succession essentially severed all trade in French
wine among the English. With that rising popularity
also came an increase in wine fraud and adulteration.
Less than scrupulous producers were adding sugar
and elderberry juice to the wine to increase alcohol
content and enhance color more cheaply. Various
spices such as black pepper, cinnamon and ginger
were added to give the wine additional flavors.
Grapes grown in other regions of Portugal and
even Spain were trucked into Oporto and Vila Nova
de Gaia to be misrepresented as authentic Port
from the Douro. As news of the scandal spread,
sales and imports of Port wine in England dropped
dramatically. Imports dropped from a high 116,000
hectoliters (over 3 million US gallons) in 1728
to 54,900 hectoliters (around 1.45 million US
gallons) in 1756. Worse still for the Port producers
was the precipitous drop in pricing.
[edit] After the scandal
In 1756, the Marquis of Pombal (pictured) established
the declaration that delineated the Douro wine
region, making it one of the world's oldest established
appellation.
The
economic turmoil as well as growing complaints
and dissatisfaction over the business dealings
of the British caused the Marquis of Pombal, in
1756, to create the Douro Wine Company to regulate
the Port wine trade. One of the company's first
regulations was the delineation of the Douro wine
region as the only sanction area that could produce
wine labeled and sold as "Port". This
1756 declaration made the Douro region, one of
the world's oldest established appellations. The
aim of the organization was to supervise the production
of Port in all stages of winemaking from harvesting
to winemaking to aging and finally shipping. In
addition to their supervisory role, the organization
also sought to remove the temptation for fraud
by ordering that all elderberry plants in the
Douro be ripped out.
The
efforts of the Portuguese government and the General
Company helped restore the Port market and sales
quickly rebounded. In 1799, 44 million liters
(over 11.6 million US gallons) of Port were imported
by the English-an equivalent of five liters for
every man, women and child in England. During
this period, Port became associated with the "Englishman's
drink" with social clubs touting membership
of "three-bottle men" or those who were
able to drink at least three bottles of Port in
one sitting. Among the notable men who touted
this accomplishment were William Pitt the Younger
and the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
So
intimately tied was Port to the English that during
the Napoleonic Wars, French and Spanish troops
invaded Northern Portugal and Douro in an attempt
to hurt British trade interest. While the vineyards
themselves sustained little damage, the French
occupation of the Douro between 1807-1809 had
a damaging economic effect on the Douro wine growers.
The British merchants of Oporto fled before the
French arrival which sealed off that valuable
export market. While the foreign troops themselves
provided some local market, more often than not
cellars were raided rather than actually purchased.
In 1808, a group of Portuguese soldiers and growers
staged a series of guerrilla attacks in the Douro.
Hiding among the high, terraced vineyards of the
Douro, the Portuguese would fire upon and attack
the French soldiers stationed along the roads
bordering the river below. By 1809, the French
occupation ended but British Port sales were slow
to return. Despite the British population boom
of the mid-19th century, sales of Port was mostly
leveled with the totals of the previous century.
The likely cause was the diversification of British
tastes which started to include the popularity
of teas, coffees, beers, chocolates and other
fortified wines such as Sherry from Spain.
Markets
in the New World
As
the British wine market leveled, Portuguese wine
producers looked to their colonies (particularly
Brazil) for wine sales.
As
the British market waned, Portuguese wine producers
turned their attention the Portuguese colonies
of West Africa and South America. Wanting to protect
their own interest, the Portuguese developed monopolistic
policies that practically forbade their colonies
from importing wines from other countries or trying
to produce wine of their own. In Brazil, the wealthy
market of Rio de Janeiro was given exclusively
to the Douro producers at the expense of other
Portuguese wine regions. The monopoly of control
allowed Portuguese wine merchants to set excessively
high prices on their wines, often five times the
price that the wines would fetch in Britain or
Portugal. Dissatisfaction over restrictions such
as these contributed to the growing movement for
Brazilian Declaration of Independence which was
eventually achieved in 1825. With the loss of
the Brazilian market and the limited markets in
West Africa, Portuguese wine producers retreated
further into their relative isolationism when
it came to the wine market. While Britain still
remained a strong market, the Portuguese wine
industry entered a period of stagnation that was
further punctuated by the devastation of the phylloxera
louse.
Phylloxera
epidemic to the mid-20th century
In
the late 19th century the phylloxera epidemic
that devastated vineyards across Europe reached
Portugal with similar devastation. Only the Ramisco
vines planted in the sandy terrain of Colares
escaped the destructive louse. Many wine regions,
especially those in the south, never recovered
and shifted their attention to other agricultural
endeavors. Among the industries that took root
was the raising and harvesting of cork material,
with Portugal today being one of the world's leading
producers. Those who did replant, turned their
attention to high yielding varieties and French
hybrids. The quality of wine produced from these
grapes were relatively low and, outside of the
steady market for Port, the Portuguese wine industry
faded out of the public attention.
The
early 20th century also brought a period of much
political and domestic instability in Portugal,
continuing until the ascension of António
de Oliveira Salazar as dictator of the Estado
Novo or Second Republic of Portugal. During Salazar's
40 year reign, the entire Portuguese wine industry
was revamped beginning with the founding of the
Junta Nacional do Vinhos (JNV) in 1937. The JNV
encouraged the consolidation of small vineyard
landowners into co-operative wine producers. While
the rise of co-operatives brought more order and
structure to the Portuguese wine industry, it
also had the negative effect of curbing creativity
and free enterprise. As co-operatives rose to
nearly absolute power in several wine regions,
the winemaking and hygiene standards of some of
the more lax co-operatives declined which cast
a pale reputation on the whole of the Portuguese
wine industry. The lone bright spot during this
period was the international success of a style
of mass-produced, sweet, slightly sparkling rosés
that came out of Portugal. Following World War
II, brands such as Mateus and Lancer marketed
this style of wine to great success in British
supermarkets and across the globe. Outside of
Port, these wines also came to be readily associated
with Portuguese wine.
To
the modern day
Today,
Portugal is known for more than just Port and
Madeira with wines such as Vinho Verde (pictured)
gaining international attention.
The
late 20th century saw another period of domestic
upheaval with the military coup known as the Carnation
Revolution. Eventually military rule gave way
to Portugal's transition to democracy which lead
to Portugal's entry into the European Union (EU)
in 1986. Admission into the EU has had an immense
impact on the Portuguese wine industry. In order
to comply with EU standards, many of the country's
monopolistic legislation that unfairly benefited
co-operatives were overturn. Smaller growers and
wine producers received millions of dollars of
subsidies and grants from the EU to improve their
vineyards and winemaking facilities. The stability
brought by democracy and the European Union also
encouraged more foreign investments which brought
expansions and upgrades of winemaking technology
and know how to Portugal. The Portuguese appellation
system of Denominação de Origem
Controlada (DOC) was also upgraded to be more
in line with its French, Italian and Spanish counterparts.
The
rise of smaller boutique wineries or quintas has
brought about a revolution in Portuguese wine
making. Prior to this, non-fortified Portuguese
wines were characterized as being "rustic"
and "oxidized". Advancements in better
winemaking techniques have allowed producers to
make cleaner, softer wines that are more palatable
to the international wine market. While historically
the Portuguese wine industry was seemingly split
into two: the producers who made Port and those
who made everything else, the distinction between
the two sides of the industry is now blurred.
Many Port producers are now making premium dry
wines from grapes grown in the Douro and producers
in other areas of Portugal have been experimenting
with making fortified wine in the style of Port
(though it can not legally be called Port). In
recent times, producers have been focusing more
experimenting with the abundance of unique Portuguese
grape varieties as well as international varieties.
Wines from Portuguese regions such as Dão,
Vinho Verde and Alentejo have been exported across
the globe and garnered attention from wine critics.
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