During the many skirmishes with France around that time, the British and Dutch levied heavy tariffs against the prized wines produced in France, especially Claret which was highly sought after in England. In the latter half of the 17 th century, the British had set up a colony of merchants not far from Porto. Kopke’s eponymous firm is still in existence today. While there is some debate about who was actually the first Port wine shipper, in 1638 a German ambassador named Cristiano Kopke founded what is currently acknowledged as the first Port shipping company in Porto. Wine has been made in the Douro region since at least the days of the Roman Empire’s presence in the area, ca. To learn more about the Marquês de Pombal and the demarcation of the Douro, you might be interested in Roy's The Methuen-Pombal Link & The Demarcation of the Douro. The Douro valley is also now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ![]() Some of these “Pombalino stones” can still be found throughout the region today. But it is the oldest in the world to be demarcated and regulated! This was almost 100 years before France’s Bordeaux AOC classification in 1855! At the direction of the Marques de Pombal, nearly 340 large stone markers were set around the newly defined Douro wine region to mark its boundaries. This makes the Douro Valley the 3 rd oldest demarcated appellation in the world, after only Italy’s Chianti (1716) and Hungary’s Tokaji (1730). The region was established in 1756 by decree of the Marques de Pombal, the Portuguese Prime Minister at the time. Port is a wine that is all about place, and that place is Portugal’s Douro valley region. ![]() In some cases these port-style wines may be very good, but they are not authentic Port for the same reason that California’s sparkling wine is not Champagne. Up until that time, various production methods and “additives” were incorporated in wines that lacked consistency or definition and had little similarity to the wines we now consume as Port.īy law, Port may only be produced in the Douro valley region in Portugal, whereas “port-style” wines are vinified in America, Australia, France, South Africa and a few other places around the world. Although wines had been produced in Portugal for many centuries, Port wine as we know it today was first produced in the early 1800s. ![]() The Port wine industry originated in Porto and its cross-river sibling Vila Nova de Gaia in the early part of the 17th century when the earliest known Shipper set up shop. In turn it also gave its name to the fortified wine known as Port. The city of Porto gave its name to the country Portugal via the ancient Roman-Celtic name for the city, Portus Cale.
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