Following a recent group trip to Porto and the Douro, I once again wrote down the history of the remarkable wines from the region. I'm happy to share it with you here. In episode 1 we start with some 'Facts & Figures', so we know what we're talking about, and the story of the very beginning.
Dear traveller,
In this guide I take you to the 'wine lodges' of Vila Nova de Gaia, where more than 200 years ago a new kind of wine was born that would conquer the world: vinho do porto, or fortified wine from the Douro Valley. I'm happy to tell you the fascinating story of its origins and evolution, starting from one of the leading producers, the family business Niepoort.
Once the port cellars have revealed their secrets, we head upstream into the Douro Valley. There we discover the magnificent vineyards that are the foundation of port, but which nowadays also produce world-class white and red wines.
I got to know all the winemakers we will meet 25 years ago, and we have been the exclusive importer of their wines in Belgium for just as long.
Enjoy the reading, and above all the tasting.
Kris Jeuris
managing director of The Portugal Collection
We start this guide with some 'Facts & Figures' about the Douro and the wines and ports made there:
Ø Total area of the Douro region: 250,000 ha
Ø Total area under vine: 46,000 ha, of which 25,000 ha is UNESCO World Heritage, producing 1,100,000 hl of wine and port combined in 2025 (For comparison: Burgundy has 27,000 ha under vine, producing 1,400,000 hl, and Bordeaux has 120,000 ha, producing 6,000,000 hl.)
Ø In sales terms, that amounted to €622,000,000 'ex-cellars' in 2025, of which €365,000,000 was port.
Ø Belgium is the 6th largest export market for port, worth €26,000,000 in 2025; for non-fortified wine Belgium ranked 13th with €1,500,000, a fraction of its share in port.
Ø Other important crops in the region are olive and almond trees. Not much else grows, because the rocky soils contain very little organic matter and rain only falls when the gods see fit, sometimes as little as 200 mm a year.
Ø Depending on the source, the Douro has between 80 and 100 indigenous grape varieties.
Ø The vineyards show enormous diversity in altitude, exposure and soil composition. As the map below shows, the Douro has a great many tributaries. Each tributary means another valley, and therefore different growing conditions for the grapes.
Ø It is not a given that fresh white wines, spicy red wines and port are all made in one and the same region. This is made possible above all by the large differences in altitude in the Douro. The vineyards near the river (at 150 m), where temperatures rise highest, are generally suited to port. The higher we go, the more the nights cool down and the better the conditions become for red and white. You'll find vineyards here up to 800 m.
Ø The Douro wine region runs from the Spanish border in the east to about 70 km from the coast, where the Marão mountains hold back most of the Atlantic influence and give the Douro a hot, dry climate. The last 70 km along the river to the mouth belong to Vinho Verde. There the cooling effect of the ocean is very noticeable, so very different wines are made.
Ø The dominant soil type in the vineyards is schist with granite beneath it; that granite comes to the surface in the higher vineyards. Most white wines come from granite soils.
and the history of Port
A bike ride through Porto eventually brings us to the left bank of the Douro, to the 'Cais de Gaia', where for a long time casks of port were loaded onto ships and conquered the world.
In 1833 the Dutch merchant Franciscus Marius Niepoort travelled to Porto, and in 1842 he started a port wine business there. His timing was good, because after a turbulent start to the 19th century, a period of enormous economic prosperity in the Porto wine trade followed from 1840 onwards. By then almost all the wines traded were fortified according to the method of the monks of Lamego, the method still used today. In the period before that, wine was already being made under the name 'porto', but it was far from the noble product we know today.
Fortifying wine
To understand the origins and evolution of port, we need to go back to the middle of the 17th century. At that time, relations between the English and the French became increasingly problematic, putting the trade in Bordeaux wine under pressure. More and more Northern European merchants therefore began looking for alternatives and started to dock in northern Portugal.
Because of the War of the Spanish Succession, the English broke off all ties with France, and in 1703 they concluded a major trade agreement with the Portuguese, known as the Methuen Treaty. More and more merchants, led by the British, settled permanently in Porto. They built their wine warehouses opposite the city centre, on the left bank of the Douro in Vila Nova de Gaia.
At first these families were merely merchants. They didn't produce wine, let alone own vineyards. Those belonged to Portuguese farmers. The name used for them at the time describes exactly what they did: they were 'Port Wine Shippers'. That's why their names don't sound Portuguese at all and at the same time sound familiar to wine lovers, because they still dominate the port trade today. Think of Taylor's, Kopke, Krohn, Graham's, Dow's, Churchill, Warre,…
These merchants had seen too much wine spoil during shipping in the dubious conditions at sea. So they decided to pour a generous dash of brandy into the casks just before shipping. You can imagine the result in the glass wasn't much better for it. After all, you wouldn't pour grappa into your glass of red wine today either.
But at the time it was the only solution known. So the price people in London were willing to pay for this wine quickly went downhill, all the more so because there was plenty of fraud in its production. Wine that was too light was coloured with elderberry juice, and Douro wine was blended with powerful wines from other regions. None of it did the quality any good.
The merchants eventually called on the help of the Portuguese prime minister of the time, who is still known today as the Marquês de Pombal. More on that soon.
Rather taste than read? Browse all our ports, read more about Niepoort or about the wine region Douro. Part 2 of this series is about the Marquês de Pombal and Vila Nova de Gaia.