Port anD the Douro uP to Date 35house increasing volumes of wine, equipping them with new labour-saving devices like
steam pumps and tramways. Another important significant innovation was the steam
cooperage. At the end of the nineteenth century, nearly all Port was shipped in pipe
(mainly to Britain) where it was bottled by individual wine merchants. Prior to shipment,
all but the finest vintage Ports would be transferred from the vats or oak casks in which
they were matured to cheaper chestnut shipping pipes, few of which were ever returned.
The turnover in the cooperage, therefore, came to symbolise the success of a business and
became an integral part of every Port-shipping firm. A novelty at the time of his visit in
the 1870s, Henry Vizetelly describes a newfangled steam cooperage:
‘In front of the lodge is a steam cooperage, where a sixteen-horse engine sets in motion
saws which divide the planks into three, reduce the staves to their proper length, give
to the heads of the casks their circular form and neatly bevel their edges. There are also
cutting machines, certain parts of which perform their 3,000 revolutions a minute,
which after rough shaping the staves, finish them off and bevel their joints, and finally
give them their convex and concave form. Here, too, the rough shaped staves are steamed
in a tank to extract all colouring matter and flavour from the wood, the completed
pipes being also slightly steamed in order to detect any imperfections in them. A crane is
employed for letting down the casks to a long store, situated on a lower level, where they
undergo the requisite seasoning with wine.’The industrial revolution in Gaia was not without its Luddites. When Silva & Cosens
decided to merchandise casks in 1894, the other coopers – fearing for their jobs – hijacked
the new boiler imported from England and rolled it into the river.^3
Men who shaPeD the Douro
andrew James symington (1863–1939)
it was against this backdrop of industriousness and enterprise that a certain andrew
James symington arrived in oporto from Glasgow in 1882 at the age of nineteen. he
began working for the Graham family’s textile concern but was immediately attracted
to the Port trade. in 1894, twelve years after first setting foot in Portugal, symington was
asked by the Lisbon government to take part in the ‘Great Burnay Port sale’ comprising
20,000 pipes which had been taken as surety from the Burnay family when their bank
failed. symington subsequently became a partner in the firm of Warre & co. and, nearly
a century later, after some astute business deals along the way, his successors are
collectively the largest Port shippers with six firms to their name (see chapter 5).