Above all, looking at the very location of the region in Portugal, it is important to
notice the distance that exists between the Douro region, where the Port wine was and is still
produced, and the City of Porto, where the wine was stocked (in Vila Nova de Gaia, to be
more precise) and shipped, and where most of the trade occurred.10 It was also in Porto that
most of the resources from trade and the taxes on wine were spent or invested, reinforcing the
relative position of the city with regard to the production area of the Upper Douro.
This distance between the two distinct spaces is relevant for understanding some of
the changes of the sector. On the one hand, the Douro region is the place where the grapes
grow and where the wine is made whilst Porto is the city where most of the trading companies
and merchants were and still are, where the R&D and he technological training are
concentrated.
The technology of blending Port was also concentrated in Porto and Vila Nova de
Gaia, like it is still today almost exclusively in Vila Nova de Gaia.
The production area extends itself from the Spanish boarder to Mesao Frio and
corresponds to its maximum extension, so as the current legal area of Port wine and the Douro
denomination of origin (DOC).11 The production and demarcated area were not always
similar. With the 1756 reform, after a long history of more or less autonomous regulation
within the limits of an absolutist monarchy, only one sixth of the current demarcation was
selected by Pombal’s legal demarcation, in what is called the Baixo and Cima Corgo.12
Afterwards, the official geographical extension extended Eastward until the beginning of the
last century, with a new delimitation by Joao Franco in 1907.
To understand the period under scrutiny (1850-1908) it is important to grasp some of
the important historical landmarks in the preceding hundred years or so. The year 1756 is the
beginning of a strong regulatory system imposed by the state with the collaboration of
important Porto merchants and prominent owners of Upper Douro vineyards. The scheme is
partly designed by the Marquis of Pombal that supervises the establishment and growth of the
10 I must note that from 1985 onwards, the new legislation allows for stocking the barrels of Port wine in the
producing area and not necessarily in Vila Nova de Gaia where most of the store houses (lodges) or warehouses
(armazens do vinho do Porto) are located.
11 Regiao Demarcada do Douro (RDD) is the generic term for the demarcation area through time. It is only in the
late century that the DOC and other denominations have spread internationally and been defined with a
controlling entity, here the IVP and the Casa do Douro.
12 The area of the demarcated area in the late 1750s was 40 thousands hectares while the current demarcation area
is about 250 thousands hectares. I have to acknowledge the pertinacious remarks made by Gaspar Martins
Pereira on a previous version of the present introduction.