Port anD the Douro uP to Date 25Forrester dates this fashion for full, sweet Port wines as coming from the extraordinarily
fine 1820 vintage and that, witnessing their popularity, merchants wanted to have such
wines each and every year. Encouraged by ‘petty inn-keepers, retail dealers, and others’,
Forrester goes on to say how merchants are want to mix Port ‘with Benecarlo [a strong
wine from Spain], or other ‘harsh inferior red wine’ as well as elderberry. Forrester details
how elderberry was used in colouring Port adding ‘that the dye, thus formed, is applied
according to the fancy of the owner; from twenty-eight to fifty-six pounds of dried
elderberry being used to the pipe of wine!’ The pamphlet lists other complaints that were
no doubt equally valid, namely the lack of any means to control the quality of the wine
from the farmer, the absence of a legal starting date for the vintage which meant that
grapes were being harvested unripe and the widespread use of jeropiga.^1
Much less valid, however, were Forrester’s complaints about the use of aguardente or
‘brandy’ in Port. Although aguardente spirit was no doubt abused on occasion, Forrester’s
assertion that Port should be a dry, unfortified wine was clearly wide of the mark and
prevailing consumer taste. In A Word or Two on Port Wine Forrester acknowledges that
‘the qualities of Port wine most prized, have been different at different periods’ but his
definition of a ‘pure wine’ is clearly one made without recourse to fortification. He states
that ‘the custom of stopping the fermentation is now common, but a real wine of any kind,
cannot be formed by those who have adopted it, still less Port-wine...’ His opposition to
the rich, sweet style of Port wine that we know (and love) today is plain, for:
‘...they [the Port shippers] state as an axiom, that “the richest wine requires the greatest
quantity of brandy” – a statement very far from being correct. In fact rich wine requires
little or no brandy, except for the purpose of preserving it from the ill effects of the
agitation on board ship during the voyage to England, and the change of climate; and
an admixture of a large quantity of brandy with such wine is highly injurious, many
years being necessary for the complete incorporation of the spirit with it, so that the real
vinous qualities may again appear.’In the furore that followed the publication of the pamphlet Forrester claimed that his
opinions were backed by 102 out of the 121 freguesias or parishes that then made up the
Douro wine region. He also elicited the support of a number of leading opinion-formers
(including the Church) whom he had lobbied in advance. In November 1844 he even
received a letter from the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon supporting his stance, although
Forrester had no doubt kept His Eminence well informed of his forthright views through
letters and speeches published in the Periódico dos Pobres.
One of Forrester’s more vocal supporters was Thomas Shaw, a wine merchant at Leith
in Scotland. In a book entitled Wine, the Vine and the Cellar published in 1864, Shaw had
‘no hesitation in the conviction that he was right’ for he adds that ‘it cannot be denied
that no man knew better and few as well as he, the port wine country, the people and
everything connected with the Douro, from Foz to Spain’. But Shaw goes on to say of
Forrester, ‘he was constantly at warfare, which appeared to be the delight of his life...’.