As told in the previous episode: 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.
The Marquês de Pombal
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, as the Marquês was called in full, was a rather ruthless leader, but his achievements were considerable. They are most visible today in the lower town of Lisboa. In 1755 it was hit by an enormous tsunami that left hardly anything of the city standing. The Marquês ensured a rapid and well-planned reconstruction. The parallel streets running up from the bank of the Tagus, which still define Lisboa's streetscape today, are his doing. The district is still called 'Baixa Pombalina'.
The statue of the Marquês now stands at the heart of the city, on the roundabout at the top of the majestic Avenida da Liberdade.
In the British cry for help, the prime minister mainly saw an opportunity to assert his influence over the potentially lucrative port trade. He united the 'growers', as the grape farmers were then called, in the Real Companhia das Vinhas do Alto Douro. This protected them from exploitation by the English merchants, so more attention could be paid to the quality of the base wine.
At the same time, a forerunner of the 'appellation contrôlée' was rolled out, a century before the Bordelais published their 1855 classification. The Douro region was marked out with large granite posts, and the vineyards were classified according to their location. Production quotas were introduced and the state controlled the trade in the brandy used to fortify the wines. Many of these measures still have an impact on wine production in the Douro today.
This laid the foundation for the success story that followed. After the disruptions of war in the early 19th century, the port trade grew strongly. Gradually the merchants also began to make wine themselves, albeit almost exclusively from bought-in grapes, but they are still called Port Wine Shippers today.
And from then on, the wine was no longer fortified at the end of the production process but, at the suggestion of the monks of Lamego, at the beginning. That is how port became the sweet after-dinner wine we know today. Adding brandy during the fermentation of the grapes stopped it abruptly, leaving plenty of unfermented grape sugar. The French have the perfect name for it: 'Vin Doux Naturel', a wine that tastes sweet thanks to the natural sugars that are retained.
Once the wine has been fortified, the basis for the final port is in place. After that, the ageing method determines the style, but more on that later.
Always the same monks
It is no coincidence that the monks of Lamego belonged to the Cistercian order. These frugally living monks can claim credit for almost every important improvement in the history of wine and related drinks.
Their greatest achievement may well be our own Trappist beer, but it was also, for example, the Cistercian monks of Cîteaux, near Dijon, who fathomed all of Burgundy's terroirs and thus laid the basis for today's distinction between the different 'crus'.
Vila Nova de Gaia
Not all of the Marquês's measures were a blessing. He also decided, for example, that all port intended for export had to be shipped to Gaia by the winter after the harvest at the latest, to be stored there.
In the photo, the 'Port Wine Lodges' are easy to recognise by their red roofs.
Ageing in the Douro was not allowed. In times without climate control, that was a sensible decision. The cooler and, above all, more humid climate on the coast was much better suited to ageing wine than the heat and drought of the Douro. And since the wines were transported by sea anyway, it was quite practical. The whole area of Gaia between the railway and the river thus became one large bonded warehouse under government supervision.
One big drawback: anyone who lacked the means to secure a warehouse in Gaia could de facto not market port under their own label. Power was thus concentrated in the hands of a select group of big players. Only when Portugal joined Europe in 1986 was the law lifted.
If the port trade is under pressure today, that is partly due to a certain complacency that crept into the big houses. The near-monopoly created by the legislation lulled them to sleep while the wine market was changing very quickly. A new generation of wine drinkers turned away from a drink they perceived as 'sticky sweet'.
Yet abolishing the restrictive law also planted a seed for the revival of port. It was led by small producers, who were no longer obliged to sell their grapes to the big houses but could start producing themselves. An important difference from the past: the small houses grow their own grapes instead of buying in their 'ingredients'. That is a huge advantage for anyone pursuing maximum quality.
Of course it took quite a while before the new impetus could also be tasted in the bottle. To become a fully fledged port house, you need to build up a generous stock of reserve wines to make the right blends. Good port also requires long ageing, and that takes a few decades.
That explains why we are only now, 40 years later, really starting to notice the effect of the law abolished in 1986. The ports of Quinta da Manoella and Quinta do Vale Meão are fine examples of the new generation. They were made with great passion and patience, resulting in very high quality, the ideal starting point for letting wine lovers rediscover the special tradition of port.
Rather taste than read? Browse all our ports, from the Morgadio da Calçada Tawny to the Niepoort Old Tawny 30 years. More about port as a wine style.