ON THE ALTO-DOURO WINE DISTRICT OF PORTUGAL. 14& 



In January, the sample-bottles are all opened and tasted by the " pro- 

 vadores" of the Commission, and "bilhetes" are delivered to the approved 

 wines, each "bilhete" enabling a pipe of wine to be brought down to 

 Rigoa, and there to obtain another passport called a " guia," insuring 

 admission to the Villanova export stores. These bilhetes and guias cer- 

 tainly limit the numerical quantity of pipes admitted to exportation ; but, 

 like other passports, they offer little or no guarantee of identity or 

 character. The bilhetes are transferable from hand to hand as publicly as 

 the wine itself, and once fetched twenty to thirty milreis — i. e., as much as 

 a pipe of wine. Now, they seldom attain half that price, and are even 

 procurable at four milreis. This is easily accountable for by the dearth of 

 wine. They used to be purchased more principally for the purpose of 

 passing the rejected wines of the " demarcation," than for exporting wines 

 from outside, thus proving that the Traz-oz-Montes wines, of which much 

 is said, cannot compete even with the rejected wines of the legal district. 

 Only some few quintas adjoining the latter, such as the Quinta do Vesuvio, 

 can afford to buy bilhetes for their produce. The wines, when sold, are 

 drawn off into pipes, sent for that purpose by the merchants, but cannot 

 be sent down the river till March. The boats perform the voyage generally 

 in three days from Rigoa to Oporto. 



One of the most obnoxious features of the restrictive system is the 

 so-called " Corte quantitative." This is regulated by the 4th and 5th 

 articles of the decree, which provide, that when the quantity of a vintage 

 pronounced exportable, shall exceed that actually exported during the pre- 

 ceding year, the Government shall be authorised to reduce the quantity 

 to be actually licensed for exportation, which quantity is never to be less 

 than the medium exported during the preceding five years. This limitation 

 is carried into effect by means of a proportionate curtailment applied to the 

 produce of each farm already approved as exportable. Thus, there were 

 94,122 pipes of the 1851 vintage, submitted to trial, and 41,403 pipes 

 were classified, as of the first quality ; therefore, eligible for export to 

 Europe. In order, however, to raise the value of the wines abroad, and to 

 keep down deposits, the Government decreed that only 20,000 pipes should 

 be exported to European ports. Consequently, 21,403 pipes, originally 

 recognised as first class, were degraded to the second, making a total of 

 39,876 pipes of good wine allowed to be shipped only to trans- Atlantic 

 ports ; while the total demand of all such ports together during half a 

 century has little exceeded 5,000 pipes per annum. The consequence was 

 a glut of wine in the country, an excessive demand for bilhetes, and a 

 great inducement to evade the law, by first shipping to America wine 

 intended to be afterwards sent to England. It used thus to happen that 

 prime wines, prepared at great expense, and approved as first class but 

 reduced by the Corte to the second class, could be bought for almost 

 nominal prices. 



Various circumstances have led to. the production of the present type 

 of Port wine as exported to England. One of them was the extraordinary 



