The fate of the Douro sealed
The Douro Valley, Portugal
James Mayor reports from northern Portugal on a brave attempt to solve the problems of the Douro, against which too many odds are stacked.
Any visitor to the Douro Valley in Portugal is struck by the timeless peace and apparent calm of this extraordinarily beautiful mountainous vineyard region. However, beauty can deceive. The Douro is currently fighting for a sustainable future, with the outcome up in the air and the community divided into disputing factions: progressives versus traditionalists, smallholders versus large producers, growers of grapes for port versus growers supplying grapes for Douro DOC table wines… And the climate versus every vine in the region, distributing heat spikes, droughts, summer storms and hail, as though for some terrible retribution.
In a recent article in Publico, Portugal’s leading newspaper, veteran Portuguese wine-industry commentator and Douro wine producer Pedro Garcias remarked, ‘the problems of the Douro are almost as old as prostitution’. E verdade! (‘it’s true!’), the Portuguese might concur.
Writing about these problems on 23 April, Jancis ended her article Save the Douro with a resounding, ‘This must change!’ Now, at last, there is a chance that change might possibly be on the way. Olga Martins, CEO of Douro wine producer Lavradores de Feitoria, has come up with an idea that takes a new approach to some of the Douro’s apparently intractable difficulties.
But first, what exactly are the problems Garcias and Jancis referred to? For anyone just tuning into the Douro story, here’s a brief recap:
The downside of the Douro’s wonderful diversity of sun exposures and elevations is its exceptionally low yields per hectare, a little over 4,000 kg (roughly 1.8 ton/acre; with climate change now, this can be even less in some years), compared with yields three or even four times higher in the US or Australia, and two to three times higher in France and Italy.
The Douro is the largest vineyard in the world where almost all the grape-picking is still done by hand. Wages are low and temperatures can exceed 40 °C (104 °F) at harvest time.
These viticultural difficulties are exacerbated by an economic distortion. Put simply, the prices paid for grapes grown for producing port, the region’s historic wine, are far higher than the prices paid for grapes grown for producing Douro DOC, still considered in some quarters as a bit of a vinous upstart.
The beneficio licensing system, administered by the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto (Douro and Port Wine Institute or IVDP) regulates the amount of grape must which can be fortified to make port in a given year, based on a strict vineyard classification. A limit on quantity is adjusted according to demand, keeping the price paid for grapes up, whereas there is no limit for grapes for Douro DOC wines, which are consequently often in over-supply.
Douro DOC grapes are frequently sold below cost, making it difficult for smallholders to look after their vineyards. This lack of sustainable income has led to increasing abandonment of farms and widespread depopulation, while the average age of farmers is rising and labour becoming scarcer. Quoting Jancis’s article, ‘The number of grape farmers in the Douro fell from 38,695 to 19,633 between 2010 and 2020 – a drop of 49%. And even today 61% of those farmers own less than a hectare (under 2.5 acres) of vines and tend them only at weekends while holding down another, more lucrative job.’
It would be myopic to ignore the connection between the low prices paid for Douro DOC grapes and the prices for which Douro DOC wines are sold in world markets, prices which by no means reflect the real cost of production. Paul Symington, respected former chairman of Symington Family Estates, leading port shippers who are also among the most successful pioneers of Douro DOC wines, reflects, ‘Douro wines are mostly priced at retail as if produced from the world’s lowest-cost and highest-yielding vineyards, when the reality is they are produced in one of the world’s lowest-yielding and most expensive and challenging vineyards.’ This discrepancy perpetuates a devalued image of the region totally incompatible with the quality of many of the wines being produced in the Douro today, with only relatively few (such as the best wines produced by the Douro Boys) commanding punchy prices. This quality can be seen from Julia’s over 1,000 tasting notes on Douro table wines.
In February 2020, David Guimaraens, head winemaker at The Fladgate Partnership, producers of premium ports which include Taylor’s, Croft and Fonseca, told me, ‘there is an economic sustainability issue in the Douro, and sadly we haven’t been very intelligent in adapting our rules in the region. An inability to change the rules in the same way the region has changed has led to a lot of poverty and hardship. Our biggest challenge is to make sure we have the same rules for both port and Douro DOC, and tragically we don’t have this. We all have a responsibility to get our act together.’
Two independent studies have alerted the powers that be about the plight of the Douro: a review by the consultants Quarternaire and a report by the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), a university closely associated with the Douro through its influential oenology course. Both reports have been lost in the long grass of Portuguese officialdom.
Echoing Guimaraens, Symington adds, ‘I’ve made myself a little unpopular pushing the Secretary of State to initiate the regulatory reforms I believe are necessary’. Symington, who was recently awarded a CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) in the Queen’s birthday honours list, contributed a long article to Publico in October 2017, which caused quite a stir but unfortunately did not prove the tornado apparently needed to create action in Portugal’s corridors of power. The population of Provesende, the village near Symington’s personal Douro vineyard, has shrunk over the last century from 2,000 to 200 inhabitants, and the village school closed years ago from lack of demand.
Martins’ initiative is called Trust & Respect and is inspired by fair trade practices and B Corporations’ ethical approach to producing and selling. It’s a pioneering project in Portugal with the idea that grape-growers, and in particular wine producers, will sign up to a certain number of best practices based on three sustainable ‘pillars’: economic, social and environmental. Farmers will be paid a ‘fair’ price for their grapes, and producers will pay workers a sustainable wage and provide training to produce wines using environmentally respectful farming methods. Adhesion to these best practices will earn participants the Trust & Respect seal and the right to place the scheme’s logo on their bottles. UTAD is sponsoring Martins’ initiative and providing technical support to evaluate exactly what can be considered ‘fair’ practice.
Martins is keen to get some of the bigger producers on board and generate a snowball effect, leaving the ‘anti-sustainability’ camp behind looking uncompassionate, uninterested in our planet and generally behind the times. She is convinced that consumers in many markets (for example Scandinavia) are sensitive to sustainability issues and prepared to pay more for wines when they know these are produced according to sustainable practices.
Let’s hope Martins’ initiative will appeal to forward-looking producers and consumers and provide an opportunity to leapfrog bureaucratic dawdling. At home in the Douro, at least for now, producers are dividing into two camps: those who welcome the concept of fair commerce for all, and those (even though you might think they were shooting themselves in the foot) who do not yet concede the need for change to ensure the region’s sustainability.
In an email to me Martins wrote, ‘through Trust & Respect, I hope we can increase the average price of our wines, and even more importantly increase the price for a kilo of grapes. We would like to stop grape growers selling up and leaving their land, and keep more people in the region, living better-quality lives to guarantee a sustainable future for the Douro.’
The initial plan was to evaluate a first fair price to be paid for Douro DOC grapes for the 2022 grape harvest. There is a possibility, however, this excellent intention will be delayed, or even completely derailed, by controversy about how to establish this fair price. Voices are being raised protesting there are too many incompatible variables to take into account: location of the vine, its age, the grape variety… There is a risk of a tug-of-war developing which can only end in all parties falling over backwards. On 3 June, Pedro Garcias was again writing in Publico, begrudgingly describing Trust & Respect as a ‘flop’ before the project had even got off the ground.
However relevant a single initiative such as Trust & Respect may be, ultimately anyone who loves Douro wines may feel inclined to gaze up at the bright Douro night sky, pick a star, and wish the Portuguese authorities to engage with the broader brush of vigorous regulatory reform, to finally place the Douro and its wines on the sustainable path they deserve.
And while we’re stargazing, how about a look at the future? Let’s consider the next generation of talented Douro wine producers in their 30s. Why not imagine a sponsorship fund, to provide funding for the next wine start-ups, based on the models that already exist in the cultural sector? If wine isn’t the cultural sector, what is?
Originally published in JancisRobinson.com, June, 2022
