It was a bold move and gave him great advantage, allowing him to build relationships with the farmers and secure the first pick of their wines. In 1744 Bartholomew Bearsley became the first British wine shipper to buy a property in the Douro. Today the estate near Regua still belongs to the Taylor family which is commemorated in the Taylor’s First Estate Reserve Port. In 1755 the Bearsly family were the first to buy vineyards and make their own wine in the Douro, which gave a great advantage. Though today the process of fortifying Port is totally different – the wine is fortified during fermentation for better alcohol integration, not after ageing.įrom 1750 onwards: the first English owned Port winery is born, Phylloxera & FortificationĪn early English pioneer in the Douro wine trade was Peter Bearsley, son of the founder of Taylor’s, who was said to be the first English wine merchant to make the hazardous trip into the upper Douro in search of the best wines.
To protect the wine from the long journey on the sea, sometimes it was fortified with the addition of brandy. The wine was known as ‘Oporto wine’ or ‘Port’ as we know it today. The solution was to carry the wine down the Douro river to Oporto,the city right by the Atlantic Ocean where it was loaded onto ships travelling to England. These vineyards were located hundreds of miles away from the Viana do Castello, the commercial hub of the English merchants.
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They found on the upper Douro, amid rocky hills and hot climate, more full bodied and robust wines. The merchants embarked on this large opportunity but travelling inlands on the Douro river in search of better quality wines. By the second half of the 15th century, a large amount of Portuguese wine was shipped to England often in exchange for salt cod, known as ‘bacalhau’.īut it wasn’t until two centuries later, in 1678 precisely, that the first records show this Portuguese wine being referred to as ‘Port’.Īs the English – Portuguese wine trade flourished, the English consumers were growing an appetite for finer wines.
In 1386 a treaty was signed between Portugal and England to establish a political and commercial alliance, which boosted this relationship. With that came the sea trade commerce and the favourable position of country on the Atlantic Ocean, meant that it caught the attention of merchants, especially from England. Portugal has been making wine for thousands of years and wine became an important export since 1174, when the Kingdom of Portugal was established.
The English / Scottish factor is due to historical commercial ties which resulted in the Port wine as we know it. Many iconic brands were founded by Englishmen and Scots, think Taylor’s, Graham’s, Cockburn. Port is an iconic wine with a lot of history made in the Douro Valley Portugal.
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