24 Port anD the Douro
On his 1848 map he comments on the excellent roads around Zamora, Salamanca and
Valladolid, but in comparison ‘the roads in northern Portugal are so bad that it takes eight
days to go from Oporto to the Barca d’Alva, a distance of 120 miles!’ He adds in a well-
intentioned but characteristically forthright manner that ‘of course in such a state ... it is
impossible for the Portuguese farmer to compete with the Spanish smuggler’.
Forrester anD FortiFiCation
These observations on the problems in the Douro are nothing when compared to Forrester’s
outspoken views on Port in general. In 1844 he published an anonymous pamphlet entitled
A Word or Two on Port Wine, the author being described as being ‘A Resident in Oporto for 11
years’. Needless to say it wasn’t difficult to uncover his identity. ‘A Word or Two’ is something of
an understatement, for this is a lengthy essay addressed to ‘the British publick [sic] generally, but
particularly to private gentlemen showing how, and why it [Port] is adulterated, and affording
some means of detecting its adulterations’. In the preface to the seventh edition of the pamphlet
published in 1848, when Forrester finally owns up to his authorship, he explains that one of the
reasons why the first edition was anonymous was that ‘my partners and myself would not draw
the attention of the consumer immediately to our house’ and that ‘we were resolved to maintain
our positions without further reference to it, until we should have silenced, if not shamed, our
antagonists’. There can be little or no doubt who Forrester had in mind when he referred to
‘antagonists’, for these were the members of the Factory House. In the seventh edition he even
goes so far as to mention Messrs. H. & Co. (probably Harris & Co. forerunner of Quarles
Harris): ‘the ring leaders of our British adversaries in Portugal’.
Forrester’s pamphlet caused uproar at the Factory House when it was first published.
Indeed Mr James Dawson Harris (of the aforementioned firm) wrote to Offley, Webber
& Forrester in 1846 stating that ‘the conduct of your Mr Joseph James Forrester, both in
public and private life, has for some years and on many occasions been so diametrically
the reverse of what I conceive that of a Gentlemen to be, that I peremptorily decline
further communication of any kind or sort with him’.
A Word or Two on Port Wine was a characteristic act of plain speaking, for its purpose
was ‘to enable the consumer to discriminate between pure and impure wine’, presupposing
that ‘he will prefer what is genuine’. In the opening paragraphs Forrester is an early
advocate of terroir, evoking pure wine as one made ‘naturally according to the kind of
grape, the soil, the height, and aspect of the vineyard where it is grown...’ as well as one
that reflects the season, ‘good or bad’. But, he continues:
‘...the practice of wine-merchants has been to disregard all the circumstances just
mentioned, and try to produce in all seasons, wet or dry, hot or cold, from grapes in
every variety of situation, and of all qualities, wines of one and the same kind only;
viz. – what is called by some full, high coloured, and fruity’ but by others, more properly,
‘black, strong and sweet’.