Port anD the Douro uP to Date 29greenhouse in 1863. In his book, The Great Wine Blight, George Ordish records that an
academic interest in plants and insects combined with the improvement in transportation
unwittingly helped to disperse this tiny, almost microscopic, aphid. In ten years phylloxera
spread throughout Europe, feeding on the roots of Vitis vinifera vines. At first yields were
merely reduced, but eventually the vines just withered and died.
It is thought that phylloxera probably arrived in the Douro in 1863 when António
de Melo Vaz de Sampaio, owner of Quinta dos Montes at Gouvinhas, imported some
American vines. Production at this property, which normally averaged sixty to seventy
pipes a year, fell to fifty-five pipes in 1865, nineteen in 1869, eight in 1870 and just
one pipe in 1872. Phylloxera spread slowly in the 1860s, affecting the Covas area before
the end of the decade, but many growers probably credited the decline in yields to the
weakness of the vines following oidium. However, panic set in when, in 1872, it was
found to have affected vineyards at Sabrosa, Santa Marta de Penaguião, Régua and São
João de Pesqueira. It then spread quickly, reaching the Douro Superior by 1877. Growers
went to extraordinary lengths to try and save their vineyards. In his book Henry Vizetelly
describes how ‘the Baron Roêda has tried, among other remedies, phosphate of lime,
coal tar, sulphate of potash, natural magnesium and sulphate of carbon, all being applied
to the roots of the vines, but with little effect’. By the late 1870s yields had declined
catastrophically, Vizetelly commenting that ‘the ravages of the phylloxera ... have very
far surpassed any damage done by the oidium’. There was a lack of wine for distillation.
Facing an acute shortage of aguardente for fortification, firms either resorted to using
grain spirit or imported quantities of highly rectified spirit from England.
Lacking any knowledge of how to combat the plague, the people of the Douro appealed
for Divine Intercession in order to survive. The Jornal de Régua of 10 July 1880 reported
on ‘a procession of atonement, organised by the residents of Cambres, to implore Divine
protection from the damage caused by phylloxera’. Facing financial ruin, many smaller
growers simply abandoned their vineyards. An unnamed British wine merchant visiting
the Douro in 1874 compared the effects of the disease to ‘the nature of that which
destroyed potatoes in Ireland’, such was its impact on the local populace who had nothing
else to depend on for their livelihood. Despite extensive replanting programmes in the
1890s and 1980s, huge swathes of abandoned terraces known as mortórios still provide
powerful evidence of the extent of the phylloxera catastrophe.
travel in the Douro: ‘steaM
horse’ anD sailing Boats
It would be hard to underestimate the impact of the railway on the Douro. Construction
began in 1873, just twenty-five years after Joseph Forrester had complained about the
paucity of communications in the region and a mere twelve years after he met with his
death trying to navigate the river. The railway arrived at Pinhão in the heart of the Cima
Corgo vineyards in 1879 and at Tua in 1882. By the time it reached Barca d’Alva on the