Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/765

 PORTUGAL (WINES OF) 745 toria de Portugal, translated from the English. The 19th century has so far been marked by the inauguration of the drama and of works of fiction in Brazil, the first by the tragedies of Domingos Jose Goncalves de Magalhaes, Antonio Jose on o Poeta e a inquisipao, and Olgiato (1838-'9) ; and the second by Caetano Lopes de Moura's translations of some of the best works of Marmontel, Mme. de Genlis, Chateaubriand, Scott, and Cooper, and Goethe's Werther. Other novelists are Joaquim Manoel de Macedo, Antonio Goncalves Teixeira e Sou- za, and Norberto de Souza Silva. But princi- pal among the works whose fame has reached beyond the limits of the empire is Fr. Adolpho de Varnhagen's Historia geral do Brazil, alike remarkable for perspicuity of style and purity of diction. PORTUGAL, Wines of. Although by its geo- graphical position and geological conformation Portugal is peculiarly adapted to the cultiva- tion of the grape, its natural advantages have been obstructed, if not almost neutralized, by the ignorance, indolence, and cupidity of the viticulturists, who for more than two centuries have generally contented themselves with man- ufacturing a factitious wine, which is exported almost exclusively to England, and has long been regarded by Englishmen as a genuine product of the vine. The Portuguese wine of commerce, known as port from the town of Oporto, near the mouth of the river Douro, is produced from grapes grown in the valley of that river and in those of certain of its tribu- taries, including the Corgo and the Penhao. The wines of the Alto Douro or Corgo district are those of the highest repute; but lower down in the valley is produced a species of dry, red, natural wine, called consumo, which from its cheapness, purity, and dietetic quali- ties is destined probably to prove a formidable rival to the more costly products of the upper Douro. Other wines of Portugal, mostly of local reputation, are the growth of Alemquer, Torres Vedras, Lamego, and Moncao, which last has a high celebrity, and those of Lisbon, Bucellas, Termo, Calcavellos (dry white wines), and Colares (a red wine, long exported to England, and still, though less abundantly, as Colares port). The wine of Barra-a-Barra, in the vicinity of Lavadrio, has been praised as one of the richest produced by Portugal. The common wines of the country are mostly in- ferior to those of Spain. England, as has been observed, is the chief consumer of port wine, and none reaches that country containing less than three gallons of brandy to the pipe of 115 gallons, while the so-called rich wines contain from five to six times that amount of alcoholic admixture. The natural wine, produced in a good year, resembles the Cote R6tie or others of the Rhone growths. It con- tains from 9 to 14 per cent, of alcohol, and would not be recognized by those accustomed only to the wine of commerce, which has an alcoholic strength equal to 40 per cent, of proof spirit. "The principal reason for the addition of brandy to port wine is this, that it is the quickest and most certain means to make the wine marketable and salable to the consumer. The wine is not made drinkable any earlier than it would have been without the addition of brandy ; on the contrary, it would have matured quicker in its natural state. But the brandy brings it into a quiescent condition; it is not liable to any subsequent little fermentations ; it may be exported to cli- mates hot and cold; in other words, with 40 per cent, of proof spirit in it, port wine will keep." (Thudicum and Dupre, "Treatise on Wine.") Port wine, therefore, unbrandied, could not be shipped to a foreign market in less than six or seven years from the time of its expressing. Fortified with brandy, it can be shipped within three or four months after the vintage, and is actually consumed in large quantities in England when less than a year old. Port wine is most effectually mellowed in large casks. The intelligent buyer will of course keep it in the bottle for seven or eight years, until the alcoholic taste is dispelled, and the true flavor of the wine recovered ; but most persons who use port, having neither the means nor the patience to do this, habitually drink a wine containing 10 per cent, more of alcoholic strength than is healthful, and every glass of which equals in strength more than two fifths of a glass of brandy. Statistics show that within a period of ten years England has been in the habit of exporting annually to Portugal spirits equal in amount to one half the wine she received from that country, the presump- tion being that the British consumer has really been dearly buying back British spirits under the name and guise of port wine. The predi- lection of the English people for the fortified wines of Portugal, and the production of such wines, are traceable to the wars between France and England, which occupied so many years of the reign of Louis XIV. Previous to the close of the ITth century the red wines of France were extensively used in England, while those of Portugal were scarcely known there. But a bitter hostility to France induced the British government to negotiate with Portugal in 1703 what is known as the Methuen treaty, by the terms of which it agreed to receive Portuguese wines in exchange for British woollen manu- factures, at one third less duties than those of France, thus practically excluding the latter from' the country. For a few years pure wines were imported, but about 1715-'17 they began to be brandied, while the duties were reduced to about one eighth of those paid on French wines. The taste for port wine was thus forced upon the people by their rulers. " There is no necessity," says Redding, " to search for any other reason why port wine was so gen- erally drunk in England. It was no intrinsic worth in the wines themselves which intro- duced them. Englishmen became wedded to long usage, and numbers believed port wine