The economic doctrines in the wine trade and wine production sectors: the case of Bastiat and the Port wine sector: 1850-1908

evidence of labor scarcity for working in the vineyards that have a difficult access. Second,
the vine blights - the oidium in the 1840s-1850s and the phylloxera in the 1860s-1880s -
imposed new ways of treating the vineyard with the use of chemicals and the use of American
rootstocks. Third, the use of brandy seems to have increased (Bennett 2005). Finally, the
British wine merchants have changed their requirements, insisting on quality and giving more
and more instruction on how to make the wine.

From the export prices of port-wine from the city of Porto, a smooth downward trend
is obvious in the second graph. This explains the preoccupation of the members of the trading
associations in Porto and the wine merchants of the city in general. In the newspapers
comments on the wine market, especially when annual figures appear in January of the
previous year or the monthly data of each preceding month, the comments reveal a concern
for the stagnation of the trade, both in quantities and in prices.

¹⁴ From David Justino (Justino 1988). xxx Vol I 326

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