History of Portuguese wine
Encyclopedia
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
's relative isolationism
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
in the world's wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
market, with the one notable exception of its relationship with the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. While wine has been made in Portugal
Portuguese wine
Portuguese wine is the result of traditions introduced to the region by ancient civilizations, such as the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and mostly the Romans. Portugal started to export its wines to Rome during the Roman Empire. Modern exports developed with trade to England after the...
(and neighboring Spain) since at least 2000 BC when the Tartessians planted vines in the Sado and Tagus
Tagus
The Tagus is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula. It is long, in Spain, along the border between Portugal and Spain and in Portugal, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Lisbon. It drains an area of . The Tagus is highly utilized for most of its course...
valleys. By the 10th century BC, the Phoenicians had arrived and introduced new grape varieties and winemaking
Winemaking
Winemaking, or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes or other produce and ending with bottling the finished wine. Although most wine is made from grapes, it may also be made from other fruit or non-toxic plant material...
techniques to the area. Up until this point, viticulture
Viticulture
Viticulture is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture...
was mostly centered around the southern coastal areas of Portugal. In later centuries, the Ancient Greeks, Celts and Romans would do much to spread viticulture and winemaking further north.
Portuguese wines were first shipped to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the 12th century from the Entre Douro e Minho
Entre Douro e Minho
Entre Douro e Minho is one of the historical provinces of Portugal which encompassed the country's northern Atlantic seaboard between the Douro and Minho rivers. Contemporaries often referred to the province as simply "Minho"...
region (which today includes modern Portuguese wine regions such as the Douro and Vinho verde
Vinho Verde
Vinho Verde is a Portuguese wine from the Minho region in the far north of the country. The name literally means "Green Wine" , referring to its youthful freshness that leads to a very slight green color on the edges of the wine. The region is characterized by its many small growers, which...
). 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
Methuen Treaty
The Methuen Treaty was an offensive military and commercial treaty between Portugal and England signed in 1703 as part of the War of the Spanish Succession....
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
Fortified wine
Fortified wine is wine to which a distilled beverage has been added. Fortified wine is distinguished from spirits made from wine in that spirits are produced by means of distillation, while fortified wine is simply wine that has had a spirit added to it...
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
Protected designation of origin
Protected Geographical Status is a legal framework defined in European Union law to protect the names of regional foods. Protected Designation of Origin , Protected Geographical Indication and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed are distinct regimes of geographical indications within the framework...
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
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
.) In the mid-to-late 20th century, sweet, slightly sparkling rosé
Rosé
A rosé is a type of wine that has some of the color typical of a red wine, but only enough to turn it pink. The pink color can range from a pale orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grapes and wine making techniques.- Production techniques :There are three major ways to produce rosé...
brands from Portugal (Mateus
Mateus (wine brand)
Mateus is a brand of medium-sweet frizzante rosé wine produced in Portugal. The brand was created in 1942 and production began at the end of World War II. The wine was especially styled to appeal to the rapidly developing North American and northern European markets...
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
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
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
Viticulture has existed on the Iberian PeninsulaIberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
(home to modern day Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
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
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
. 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
Alcácer do Sal
Alcácer do Sal is a municipality in Portugal, located in Setúbal District. It has a total area of and a total population of 13,624 inhabitants.-History :-Earliest settlement:...
, 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
Lusitania
Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...
after Lusus
Lusus
Lusus is the supposed son or companion of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and divine madness, to whom Portuguese national mythology attributed the foundation of ancient Lusitania and the fatherhood of the its inhabitants, the Lusitanians, seen as the ancestors of the modern Portuguese people...
, the son of the Roman god of wine Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
. 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
Export
The term export is derived from the conceptual meaning as to ship the goods and services out of the port of a country. The seller of such goods and services is referred to as an "exporter" who is based in the country of export whereas the overseas based buyer is referred to as an "importer"...
to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. 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
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
tribes sustained the tradition and practice of viticulture in the area. In the mid-9th century AD, Ordoño
Ordoño I of Asturias
Ordoño I was King of Asturias from 850 until his death.-Biography:He was born in Oviedo, where he spent his early life in the court of Alfonso II. He was probably associated with the crown from an early age. He was probably raised in Lugo, capital of the province of Galicia, of which his father,...
the Gothic king of Asturias
Kingdom of Asturias
The Kingdom of Asturias was a Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula founded in 718 by Visigothic nobles under the leadership of Pelagius of Asturias. It was the first Christian political entity established following the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after Islamic conquest of Hispania...
(in what is now northern Portugal) granted vineyards and landowning privileges around the town of Coimbra
Coimbra
Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...
to a monastic Christian order in the area. While most historian's accounts of the history of wine
History of wine
The history of wine spans thousands of years and is closely intertwined with the history of agriculture, cuisine, civilization and humanity itself...
following Roman rules suggest that the Christian Church
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
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
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
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
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 liter
Litér
- External links :*...
s 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
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
by shipping their wares in Portuguese wine barrels with forged documentation.
While the English wine market was lucrative, the relationship was essentially monopolistic
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
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 £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
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
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
was a vital trading stop to British colonies in the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
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
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
from Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
.
The rise of Port
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 Karen MacNeilKaren MacNeil
Karen MacNeil is an American author, journalist, wine educator and consultant based in Napa Valley. MacNeil is also the creator and chairman of the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the Culinary Institute of America in St...
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
Lamego
Lamego is a municipality in northern Portugal, with a population of 27,054 inhabitants Lamego is a municipality in northern Portugal, with a population of 27,054 inhabitants Lamego is a municipality in northern Portugal, with a population of 27,054 inhabitants (the catchment of the city of...
located along the Douro river. In search of new wines to ship back to England, the merchants came across an abbot
Abbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...
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
Fermentation (wine)
The process of fermentation in wine turns grape juice into an alcoholic beverage. During fermentation, yeast interact with sugars in the juice to create ethanol, commonly known as ethyl alcohol, and carbon dioxide...
, 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
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
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
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
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
War of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...
essentially severed all trade in French wine among the English. With that rising popularity also came an increase in wine fraud
Wine fraud
Wine fraud is a form of fraud in which wines are sold to a customer illicitly, usually having the customer spend more money than the product is worth, or causing sickness due to harmful chemicals being mixed into the wine...
and adulteration. Less than scrupulous producers were adding sugar
Chaptalization
Chaptalization is the process of adding sugar to unfermented grape must in order to increase the alcohol content after fermentation. The technique is named after its developer, the French chemist Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal...
and elderberry
Elderberry
Sambucus is a genus of between 5 and 30 species of shrubs or small trees in the moschatel family, Adoxaceae. It was formerly placed in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, but was reclassified due to genetic evidence...
juice to the wine to increase alcohol content and enhance color more cheaply. Various spices such as black pepper
Black pepper
Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...
, cinnamon
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...
and ginger
Ginger
Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....
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
Vila Nova de Gaia
Vila Nova de Gaia, or simply Gaia is a city in Vila Nova de Gaia Municipality, Portugal. It is located in the Porto District, south of the city of Porto on the other side of the Douro River. The city proper has a population of 178,255 and the municipality contains 24 parishes with a total...
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.
After the scandal
Douro Wine Company
The Douro Wine Company was a government oversight organization established by the Portuguese Prime Minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal to regulate the trade and production of Port wine...
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 appellation
Appellation
An appellation is a legally defined and protected geographical indication used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown; other types of food often have appellations as well...
s. The aim of the organization was to supervise the production of Port in all stages of winemaking from harvesting
Harvest (wine)
The harvesting of wine grapes is one of the most crucial steps in the process of winemaking. The time of harvest is determined primarily by the ripeness of the grape as measured by sugar, acid and tannin levels with winemakers basing their decision to pick based on the style of wine they wish to...
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, woman 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
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
.
So intimately tied was Port to the English that during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, 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 tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
s, coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
s, beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
s, chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
s and other fortified wines such as Sherry
Sherry
Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez , Spain. In Spanish, it is called vino de Jerez....
from Spain.
Markets in the New World
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. 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
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, the wealthy market of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
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
Brazilian Declaration of Independence
The Brazilian Independence comprised a series of political events occurred in 1821–1823, most of which involved disputes between Brazil and Portugal regarding the call for independence presented by the Brazilian Kingdom...
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
Phylloxera
Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...
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 RamiscoRamisco
Ramisco is a red Portuguese wine grape variety that is planted primarily in the Colares DOC. As a varietal Ramisco produces very tannic and astringent wines....
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
Agriculture in Portugal
Agriculture in Portugal is based on small to medium-sized family-owned dispersed units, however, the sector also includes larger scale intensive farming export-oriented agrobusinesses backed by companies...
. 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
Yield (wine)
In viticulture, the yield is a measure of the amount of grapes or wine that is produced per unit surface of vineyard, and is therefore a type of crop yield...
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
António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
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
Free enterprise
-Transport:* Free Enterprise I, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1962 and 1980.* Free Enterprise II, a ferry in service with European Ferries between 1965 and 1982....
. As co-operatives rose to nearly absolute power in several wine regions, the winemaking and hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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
The late 20th century saw another period of domestic upheaval with the military coup known as the Carnation RevolutionCarnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
. Eventually military rule gave way to Portugal's transition to democracy
Portuguese transition to democracy
Portugal's experience with democracy before the Carnation Revolution of 1974 had not been particularly successful. Its First Republic lasted only sixteen years, from 1910 to 1926. Under the republic, parliamentary institutions worked poorly and were soon discredited. Political corruption and...
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
Denominação de Origem Controlada
The Denominação de Origem Controlada is the system of protected designation of origin for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products from Portugal.-Wines:...
(DOC) was also upgraded to be more in line with its French
Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée
Appellation d’origine contrôlée , which translates as "controlled designation of origin", is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses, butters, and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut National...
, Italian
Denominazione di Origine Controllata
Denominazione di origine controllata is a quality assurance label for food products, especially wines and various formaggi . It is modelled after the French AOC...
and Spanish
Denominación de Origen
Denominación de Origen is part of a regulatory classification system primarily for Spanish wines but also for other foodstuffs like honey, meats and condiments. In wines it parallels the hierarchical system of France and Italy although Rioja and Sherry preceded the full system...
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
Vinho Verde
Vinho Verde is a Portuguese wine from the Minho region in the far north of the country. The name literally means "Green Wine" , referring to its youthful freshness that leads to a very slight green color on the edges of the wine. The region is characterized by its many small growers, which...
and Alentejo have been exported across the globe and garnered attention from wine critics.