Portugal
Portugal’s unique diversity of landscape, soil and climatic conditions, together with its expertise and knowledge of grape varieties, combine to create superb wines.
The wines of Portugal are a legacy, which was inherited from the Romans and subsequently nurtured and developed by the Portuguese.
Portugal is ranked 11th in the world as a wine producing country. Vineyards are found throughout the country, covering a total area of approximately 258,000 hectares.
The early kings of Portugal promoted the production of wine and its high quality encouraged exports of a product that even today employs 28% of the working agricultural population.
The export of Portuguese wine began in 1367 during the reign of D Fernando. It is believed that the first wine to be exported was from Monção – a region still famous for its quality – and shipped to England.
To maintain the quality and authenticity of the wine, there are 40 official demarcated regions in which wine can be produced. The first delimitation of an area was established in 1756, under the name “Region Demarcada do Douro”.
Portuguese wines have a particular gastronomic relevance, as they complement all kinds of foods, including the more exotic.
Douro
The Alto Douro, the Demarcated Region of Douro, stretches along the river Douro’s valley from Barqueiros, some 100 Km upstream from Oporto, to Barca de Alva and along the valleys of its tributaries Corgo, Jorto, Pinhão, Tua, etc. Sheltered from the Atlantic winds by high mountain ranges its soil consists essentially of schists of the Cambric and the Pre-Cambric. It is a rough territory, scorching in summer and cold in winter made up of narrow and rugged valleys; poor in its dryness, in the steepness of its stony slopes burnt by the pityless summer sun, in its almost monoculture, in its minute yield per vine, but rich in its picturesque beauty, rich in possessing an unique soil and climate enabling it to produce an incomparable wine. The river that has given it its name is its back-bone, its immemorial highway. Régua is its commercial centre; its geographic centre is approximately Pinhao
Its area covers about 240,000 hectares, but the vineyards cover not much more than one tenth. The vineyards, some 83,000, are all classified through the ‘Cadastro” (register) of the Region. This “Cadastro” is held by the “Casa do Douro” (Association of the WineGrowers) in Régua.
The Vine
The vine was and is still cultivated on terraces supported by stone walls made of the plentiful schist and more recently on platforms held up by natural slopes or even on tracts of sloping land without walls or ramps. The terraces as well as the platforms usually follow the contours of the hillside, thus changing the steep and rocky valleys of the Douro Region into gigantic and wonderful stairways. The low-growing vines are set up in parallel trellises: rows of vines supported on wires and wood or stone props.
Opposite to what happens in most other famous wine regions.. numerous noble varieties of vines are used in the Upper Douro.
Setubal
The region of Setúbal cultivates the vine since the occupation by Romans, Visigoths and Arabs, and it is considered one of the more important wine-growing zones in the country. Our kings always mentioned the singular wine of this region in the documents they produced to serve as law and protection to the local populations. Its importance is witnessed by the bulk of exportation the wine always has had, mainly in the 15th century, together with the Setúbal salt, equally famous.
The Moscatel from Setúbal, produced in the concelhos of Palmela and Setúbal, is considered one of the finest wines in the world, what should be imputed to the particular agricultural and climatic conditions of the delimited wine region, mainly in two zones of production: The Arrabida Mts. (argillaceous and calcareous soil) and the adjoining plain, that receives the hot winds from the south.
The vine, grown in a particularly peaceful environment, produces a nectar with a unique sweetness and bouquet, and a alcoholic grade of 18 degrees.