In the mid-18th century two-thirds of all the wine shipped to Britain came from Portugal. It was part of an ancient trade of casks in return for cod and cloth that was boosted by a hefty tax break over French wines in the 1703 Methuen Treaty. Over time the reds became synonymous with port, there was vinho verde for the whites and the world’s biggest brand of pink plonk – Mateus Rosé.
With all the colours covered what could possibly go wrong? Well, in a nutshell, demand for fortified wines tailed off, we lost our taste for old-style, spritzy vinho verde, and Mateus became hopelessly naff. Today Portugal accounts for around one per cent of UK imports.
Of course there’s more to the story than that. While we were being taught about international grape varieties in the 1980s, the country’s winemakers were otherwise engaged. “I think they were just very sleepy for a while, and with a strong home market they didn’t need to pay much attention to what was going on elsewhere,” says Joanna Locke, The Wine Society’s buyer of Portuguese wine.
When Portugal joined the EU in 1986, investment flooded in to modernise the country’s wine industry. The domestic scene became harder due to recession, and producers were driven to look beyond their traditional export markets of Brazil and Angola. Unfortunately the west was obsessed with chardonnay while all they could offer were their own uniquely Portuguese varieties, which were almost invariably blended and hard to pronounce.
Actually it wasn’t unfortunate at all. “People are realising they have to produce something sustainable,” says Locke. “You can’t just compete to make the cheapest chardonnay, there’s no point.” And that’s a blessing whether through laziness, a stubborn belief in their own grapes or simply because they missed the boat. The thought of swathes of Portuguese pinot grigio on the shelves would be too depressing for words.
An ocean of wine, especially whites and particularly from the new world, is sold on the back of a well-known grape, and to suggest that tiny Portugal could somehow reverse that trend on its own is clearly absurd. Still, if you want a change from yet another Kiwi-style sauvignon or Italian pinot grigio this is a great place to start. And if I am wrong, you won’t have lost much, since Portuguese wine is usually good value and sometimes a real bargain.
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