Port anD the Douro uP to Date 41the end of May 1938, the Port lodges closed ‘to enable their staff to participate in the
great festivities organised ... in celebration of the new regime in Portugal which had now
reached its twelfth year of success’.
wine anD the seConD worlD war
When war broke out in September 1939, the Port trade effectively came to a standstill.
Although Portugal technically remained neutral throughout the hostilities, all British families
were advised to leave Oporto and a destroyer was sent to Leixões to oversee the evacuation.
Many of the older members of the trade chose to remain behind and enjoyed a life of relative
comfort and plenty at a time when the rest of Europe was on its knees. Compared to Lisbon,
which was a hotbed of intrigue and espionage, Oporto remained a quiet backwater. In the
Douro, where food was in relatively short supply, Pinhão and the vicinity were kept from
going hungry by an enterprising local family who ran a flourishing black market in essential
supplies. Wolfram was mined in the Douro near Sabrosa and at Quinta do Vesúvio, and
was exported directly to Germany. Perhaps sensing the outcome of the war, Salazar finally
suspended wolfram shipments in 1944. In 1943 the British briefly toyed with the idea of
invading the Azores but, in the spirit of the Treaty of Windsor and sensing an Allied victory,
Salazar granted them the use of the islands as a naval and air base.
Annual shipments of Port to the United Kingdom fell to just 1,500 pipes (compared
to 30,000 to 40,000 pipes in the 1930s) but most shippers continued to maintain a
London sales office throughout the war. Many arrived at their offices to find they had
been blitzed the previous night, and there were stories of streams of precious vintages
from the 1920s and 1930s running down the streets near London Bridge. When one
shipper visited his bombed-out office, he found builders pouring the remaining bottles
of pre-war vintage Port (probably estufado from the heat) into an old kettle and drinking
it from tin mugs! Port shipments began to recover slightly after the Grémio negotiated
a quota system with the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, in 1942. The quota system
divided Port into two grades: grade one for inexpensive Ports and grade two for ‘superior
wines’ like vintage Port and aged tawny. The quota remained in force until 1949, at which
time the latter represented a mere 5 per cent of annual shipments.
the oPorto tiMe warP
In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Port shippers fully expected a recovery similar
to that which followed the First World War. In preparation for a surge in shipments the
Port Wine Institute authorised a benefício of 70,000 pipes. The shippers bought heavily
and in 1945 they had accumulated stocks amounting to 300,000 pipes (165 million litres).
They were sorely let down. Port shipments rose steeply in the year after the war to 280,000
hectolitres, only to fall sharply again thereafter. A trio of exceptional post-war vintages
(1945, 1947 and 1948) failed to stimulate much interest; the outstanding 1927 vintage,