1
Port anD the Douro,
uP to Date
early history: Portus anD Cale
There is no Taylor’s Quinta de Terra Feita 1998. The harvest was successful, the wine was
made and transported from the Douro to Vila Nova de Gaia. But at the end of the day on
Wednesday 3 January 2001, a great roar was heard in Fonseca’s lodge, followed by a river
of wine. The winter was already one of the wettest on record and torrential rain which had
been falling since the end of October caused a landslide and the collapse of part of the
building. Such was the force of a thousand pipes of Port (the equivalent of almost three
quarters of a million bottles) pouring along the corridors that it was difficult to remain
standing. Alongside Terra Feita 1998, many of Fonseca’s best wines from the 1999 vintage
were lost as wine flowed out of the building and down the street.
The landslide exposed a fragment of Cale, the Roman fortress that, along with Portus
on the north side of the river, gave its name to Portucale. Although the Phoenicians are
credited with bringing the vine to western Iberia, it is likely that the Romans introduced
viticulture to the Douro around the turn of the second century AD. As they subdued the
tribal Celts, they abandoned the defensive castros (hill forts) and began to cultivate the
valleys where they established the first lines of communication. There is archaeological
evidence of an apotheca (winery) in the Douro at the castellum of Fonte de Milho near
Régua dating from the latter part of the Roman Empire.
Christianity reached Portugal a century later and vineyards were planted around the
bishoprics to provide wine for the Christian rite. With the fall of the Roman Empire,
successive tribes of Suevi, Visigoths and Moors overran the Iberian Peninsula. The Suevi
and Visigoths who occupied the northern part of Iberia continued to defend the Christian
faith, establishing new dioceses at Portucale and Lamecum (modern-day Lamego). The
granite mountains north and south of the Douro are punctuated by small troughs dating