The Short History of Port

Romans introduced wine to Portugal (and the whole Iberian Peninsula) in the first century B.C., and Portuguese have been making wine ever since. Britain has been the traditional trading partner and ally of Portugal since 1373 when an agreement was signed pledging "perpetual friendship." When In 1678 Britain declared war on France and blockaded French ports, it was natural that British wine merchants turned to Portugal to find an alternative to the French wines they preferred and to solve the shortage of wine due to the war.
Unfortunately, wines of the quality they were looking for were not readily available. Wine making in Portugal had not become the serious endeavor it was in France. So in order to have good wine, the British went to oversee the production themselves. Traveling inland along the Douro River, they found darker and more astringent red wines in contrast to those they had seen near the coast. In order to stabilize them for shipment to England, merchants added "a bucket or two" of brandy to the barrels of wine before sending them off. This early wine from Oporto was not highly praised back in London and the sales fluctuated with the warming and cooling of Britain's relations with France.
Wine making in the Douro Valley was revolutionized in the first 30 years of the 18th century: vineyards were literally built out of the mountain, resin-treated goat skins were traded for wooden barrels, transportation of the barrels down-river was organized, and the shippers built warehouses or "lodges" in Vila Nova de Gaia to store their wines. No one knows exactly when port, as we know it, was created. According to an anonimous story, in the Douro Valley they came upon a monastery in Lamego. The abbot was adding brandy to the wine during rather than after fermentation thereby producing a port-type wine. In any event, sometime during the end of the 1600's or beginning of the 1700's, someone came up with the idea of stopping the fermentation with brandy while the wine was still sweet, fruity, and strong: Port Wine was born.
The major port houses we know today had been established in the 18th century: Warre, Croft, Taylor, Sandeman, Offley Forrester, Kopke, van Zeller, Burmester, Graham, Guimaraens, Cockburn, and Dow. This was the "Golden Age of Vintage Port" and in it many vintages were declared. The last great vintage of these years was 1878.

The Land

The Douro Valley was the world's first officially demarcated wine region. It probably the world's most difficult wine growing region. 10 to 12% of this area includes cultivated vine planted on the harsh, rugged mountains that rise up from the Douro River and its tributaries. At times the inclination increases from 35% up to 70%. The best grapes are grown at low elevations and there is a local saying that the best port comes from the grapes that can hear the river flowing.
The region, referred to locally as "the Douro," begins at the Serra do Marão, a range of mountains 40 miles inland, and extends almost 100 miles to the Spanish border. At its widest point it measures only 16 miles. The mountains create a weather barrier, sharply cutting the rainfall that is received to the east of them. The climate of the Douro becomes one of extremes. The summers are extremely hot and dry, and the winters can be quite cold as the mercury sometimes drops below 0°. The Serra do Marão mountain range was for so long an obstacle, that the region has always been a remote one, a feeling and look it still retains to this day. Settlements are few and far between. Transportation and communications require patience.

There is almost no soil on these mountains. What is there is a hard schist that retains little water and features few nutrients. In fact, it is very acidic due to high potassium and low calcium and magnesium content. And it contains excessive aluminum which is toxic to the roots. But man's fierce dedication, determination and hard work has turned what might look like a lunar landscape, into a first class wine growing region. Over a period of 300 years, a gritty, choking, soil has been created by smashing up the schistose rocks to a depth of three feet. The sides of the mountains have been fashioned into terraces most often by the use of pointed iron tools and dynamite. Grape vines cling to these terraces and follow the contour of the mountain. Their search for water may push the roots down 65 feet through the fissures in the schist. This is truly a wine born of adversity. The Port wine region is divided into three sub-zones: the Baixo Corgo (lower), the Cima Corgo(higher), and the Douro Superior. The three regions are determined by natural conditions. The westernmost Baxio Corgo is the smallest region, yet due to its close proximity to the Atlantic ocean it gets the most rainfall, is the most fertile, and thus is the most abundant. It tends to produce the lightest wines like ruby and tawny ports. It produces almost 50% of all port made. Upstream, the Cima Cargo is more than double in size. About 14% is planted with vines. This sub-zone is demarcated from where the Corgo River intersects the Douro to the Cachão de Valeira Gorge. Here, where rainfall is significantly less is where most of the high quality tawny, LBV, and Vintage port is made. Surrounding the town of Pinhão, are most of the famous wine growing properties or quintas. This region accounts for about 36% of the port produced. The last region is the Douro Superior and extends to the Spanish border. It is the largest of the three sub-zones. It is the most arid and the least developed. Only about 13% of all port is produced here. It will be interesting to see what developments will come to this zone in the years ahead.