128 Port anD the Douro
A single lagar will generally be filled over the course of a day’s picking. At the end of the
day, as the sun sets behind the hills, the pickers return to the adega. After a hearty supper
they each don a pair of shorts and, having supposedly washed their feet, step thigh-deep
into the mass of grapes. On the basis that it takes two people per pipe to tread effectively,
the equivalent of two football teams will be required to a work a lagar with a capacity
of 22 pipes (12,100 litres). Although vintage is an excuse for a great deal of mirth and
merriment, treading grapes in a lagar is both arduous and monotonous, especially after
an exhausting day in the vineyard. For the first two to three hours, the treaders link arms
and march slowly back and forth; the soles of their feet squelching the grapes against
the stone floor of the lagar. This regimented treading is known as the corte or cut, and is
usually accompanied by the rhythmic chant of ‘um, dois’ (one, two) or ‘esquerda, direita’
(left, right) from the rogador, a senior member of the roga who acts as a drill sergeant.
Legs must be lifted high to work the grapes and homogenise the must. The pressure and
friction of treading prior to fermentation provokes the rupture of the cell walls of the
grape skins and imparts colour and flavour to the must. At the end of this period (usually
around 10 p.m.) the corte comes to an end and liberdade (‘freedom’) is declared. Cups of
wine, bagaceira (a particularly ferocious brandy) and cigarettes are sometimes doled out
and the treading continues informally until midnight to the accompaniment of a local
accordionist or, more prosaically, to the sound of a booming CD player. By the end of the
evening with forty or more well-oiled souls dancing around in a lagar, there is often quite
a party. Needless to say when foreign wine-trade visitors arrive in the adega (usually after
having been entertained to a good dinner), the party sometimes runs out of control and
people emerge from the lagar dripping with purple grape must.
In spite of twenty-first century technological advances, the scene at many a quinta
during vintage has remained virtually unaltered for over a hundred years. Visiting the
Douro in the 1870s, Henry Vizetelly found ‘a score of men in a clammy purple bath
... treading the grapes to the sound of fife and drum’, adding that ‘they half march, half
dance round the large lagar’. The only difference seems to be a minor matter of basic
hygiene. When Vizetelly was offered the opportunity to taste the must, one of the treaders
lifted his brawny leg and a large white saucer was ‘held beneath his dripping foot to
receive the mosto [grape must] as it trickled down’!
Fermentation tends to start naturally after a few hours. Port producers rely on the
natural flora of the grapes and the ambient yeasts in the winery and add sulphur to the
must at the outset in order to select the most desirable strains. The onset and speed of
fermentation will depend on the temperature of the grapes when they reach the adega.
Ideally the grapes will arrive at the adega registering temperatures of around 20°C, rising
to 28 to 30°C at the height of fermentation. However, if the ambient temperature is cold
at the start of vintage it may take days for the fermentation to begin. With all the lagares
having been filled, this can cause a problematic log jam when there is no spare capacity for
more grapes. Conversely, if the ambient temperature is too warm, the grapes may already
be fermenting when they reach the winery and the fermentation will be fast and furious
and take little work. Human legs and feet help to warm the must; an advantage in a cool