Figure 2: Export prices in reis from 1881 to 1904 per pie of wine.15
4. The liberal defense of the unrestricted port-wine system and its demise
In this section, I will base most of my argument to a representative and influential
figure of the port-wine industry: the Barao de Massarelos, Joaquim Augusto Kopke, the last
member of the Kopke family active in the wine trade. The establishment of the family in the
city of Porto is due to Christiano Kopke who in 1638 started a trading business in Portuguese
staples, first, and, shortly after this start, entered the trade of Douro wines with a relative
success and successive generations of the family run the business until the middle of the 19th
century.16
15 The sources of the prices are from my own calculation on the figures published in the journal O Comércio do
Porto from several issues. The prices given are estimations of the Alfândega, the Custom House, in Porto.
Prices differ according to the destination: the most expensive wines are for the British and the German market,
the cheapes for the Brazilian market. I have taken the average price, i.e. the overall value of exports divided by
the total export expresses in pipes.
16 Other intellectuals are important, both for the political debates, mainly in Parliament, and for the “Wine
issue”(A questào dos Vinhos). One figure that wrote abundantly on wine issue is James Forrester, wine
merchant and ensayist. He wrote a defense of laissez-faire against the restrictive system in his “Consideraçoes
acerca da Carta de Lei de 21 de Abril de 1843” that the Barao de Massarelos intensively criticized (CP, several
issues from April to December 1859). As Massarelos, Forrester criticized the arbitrariness of the Companhia and
the inefficient system of control as well as the absurdity of the system of guias or bilhetes, a system that divided
wine in two categories, one exportable and accompanied by a written authorization (guia). Often these
authorizations were negotiated on a parallel market and secondary quality wine was often used and transported
with authorizations that other wine merchants or winemakers sold. Forrester, however, presents a much deeper
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