We once called Douro the port region, but these days we really sell the incomparable valley in Portugal short. There are now just as many great 'ordinary' wines coming from it. Magda went to taste them.
Text: Magda van der Rijst | Image: Unsplash
Port is actually an accidental find from the 17e century. You could say it owes its origins to the war between England and France. The British, lovers of French wine, looked for alternatives and also ended up in northern Portugal. In the Douro, people had been drinking since time immemorial consumo: a simple, light wine made from a blend of blue and white grapes.
Add a shot of alcohol
Consumo was not a wine to keep, but simply to drink daily on the spot. The British saw Consumo as a nice replacement for the French claret they were used to. To protect the fragile Portuguese wine from oxidation and spoilage during the long sea voyage, they added a generous splash of aguardente, neutral alcohol, with it. This suited them well, over time the method of fortification developed and after roughly 100 years, port was a household name. This popular fortified wine made the Douro world famous.
Expensive grapes
Outside the Douro, nobody thought about the ordinary unfortified wine anymore, but of course it never disappeared. Logically, much more attention was paid to port because that was by far the biggest earner. This is largely still the case. First, the grapes for port come from vineyards that were once, long ago, classified as the best. It is obvious that a higher price is paid for that, but there is another rule that really complicates things.
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