“In a very basic sense, terroir is the expression of a physical place through the flavors and quality of a wine . . . including the climate of the vineyard where the grapes were grown, the soil, the geography, as well as the characteristics of the grape variety itself.”
– Becca Yeamans-Irwin

Vines are cultivated in all corners of Portugal – not just mainland Portugal, but also it’s islands, Madeira and the Azores. Of these, the Douro Valley is perhaps the best known. It is here that the world’s first demarcated wine region was established in 1756 by royal charter. Roughly 43,000 hectares of vineyards in this corner of Portugal produce around 70% of all wine exports. Although Port is this area’s most famous and unique export, it also produces many other wines.

During the Estado Novo (1933-74) years, a widely publicized official slogan pronounced, “to drink wine is to feed one million people in Portugal”. These days, wine is still an important aspect of Portuguese culture, if not of the very soul of the people. It is not just wine estates or co-operatives producing wine, but almost everyone who owns a couple of rows of vines. After the vines are pruned in January, or the 3rd Sunday of February, as I was told recently to be the correct time for pruning in the area I live, they ripen and accumulate flavour throughout the warm summer months. It is when the quality of light changes, heralding the start of autumn in September or even October, that the harvest takes place.

I was lucky this past week to help pick grapes on the quintas of two different friends. My first experience came on Tuesday, when eleven of us toasted to this year’s harvest, before scrambling off to pick both white and red grapes from various locations on a 5-hectare property. In some areas the magpies ate their fill, leaving almost nothing to pick, but in others their scouts missed enormous bunches hidden from view. A total of 1000 liters of must were extracted from our picking, which, over the next 8 to 21 days will slowly ferment into an organic wine with no added sulfites.

On the second one, production is on a much smaller scale, but produces still more than enough for personal use. Here, grapes are removed manually from the stalks, before barefoot treading turn them into a rich purple-red juice or must. Mixed with aguardente (a strong, clear liquid distilled from grape must), a portion of this will become Jeropiga, a sweet red wine.

The grapes on both properties burst with flavour and sweetness, and I’m looking forward to sample the end results.

Being dreamers, we hope to also plant a vineyard someday. In the meantime, we’ve managed to save a couple of old vines on our property, when we cleared a particularly bad patch of brambles. They grew beautifully this year, but there were no grapes, and we were told that it may take a year or two to recover, or alternatively we can graft a variety we like on the existing root stock.

Notes:
# An estimate put half of Portugal’s active population in 1900 as directly or indirectly involved in wine production.
# In 2010-14 consumption levels of wine was around 40 liters per capita.
# A glass of Madeira’s fortified wine was used to celebrate the signing of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.
# Wine has, for centuries, formed a large chunk of the total agricultural output in Portugal. In 1515 it was 15%; in 1850, 19%; it averaged 22% in the years between 1861-70; and peaked at 23% between 1900-09. It declined to 13.5% between 1935-39; by 1970-73 it was 11%; and in 2013 it was 9%.

Portuguese Words:
uvas – grapes
vinhedo – vineyard
vinho – wine
aguardente – firewater
vinho verde – green wine
vinho branco – White whine
vinho tinto – red wine
copo de vinho – glass of wine
garrafa de vinho – bottle of wine

Written by: Jolandi