IntroductionOur trip to Porto was a new experience. With it, we spread

our cultural and social knowledge in different areas, in the several

places that we visited, like:

Cruise on river Douro (a lot of time…but fun)

Dinner in the shopping (our pockets stay empty)

Return to Porto in the Train (time to sleep)

Sleep in the Youth Hostel (Sleep!?!? … yes… Maybe…)

Breakfast (very early!!!)

Visit to Celas of Port wine (including tasting of wine)

Watch the river (time to relax..)

Lunch in Arrabida Shopping

We love all those things, but in our work, we will only talk about the last thing we have done, the visit to the Port

wine Museum.We will give an objective and subjective perspective about

this visit, where we learn a little more about the commercial world of Port Wine.

Visit the Port Wine Museum

In direction to Sever do Vouga ;-(

Port Wine Museum

What we have done !

We arrived to Museum at two o’clock p.m., and we were

divided in two groups (we stay in second group). While we wait

for our turn, we were sitting in the sofas, we done a lot of

things, like: to take fotos, to talk, and we try to sleep, but

Physic Education teacher doesn’t let us.

After a long wait during an hour, our time arrived. We

were tired, but prepared to begin our guided visit and listen

carefully her explication. She boarded the commercial history of the

Porto city, showing us the importance of

the Porto Wine.

He saw pictures, texts that were

adapted to blind people, a movie about of

Rableo Boats, credit notes, bottles of wine,

clothes, a river map…

The museum was placed in a warehouse, of XVIII Century, of General Company for the Cultivation of Upper Douro Vineyards. It has this localization to stay near to the river and the transport of barrels becomes easier.

A little more about the museum…

The Port Wine museum is dedicated to the

commercial area of Port wine. It presents some

innovations through the transcription of texts in

Braille with the rout marked and through the

existence of imaginary characters (Pipas and Sara Pipa) created by

Isabel Rocha Leite that accompany the younger

visitants.

Commercial development was promoted by the trading relations

that Portugal enjoyed with the outside world, above all with England,

with

whom the oldest international alliance in the world had existed since

1386. In the 14th century, Portugal consumed the cod fished in Northern

waters by English seamen, exchanging it for the green wines of Minho, an

area in which there was a strong British commercial presence whose size

necessitated the creation of a factory in Viana do Castelo, capable of

defending its interests.

It was in 17th century, with the wars between England and France

intensifying, that Charles II of England, married to the Portuguese Princess D.

Catarina de Bragança, prohibited the import of French wines, leading to a

greater demand for Portuguese wines. English merchants were forced to

seek wine all over the country in sufficient quantities to supply the British

crown, finding on the slopes of the Douro a wine until then unknown to them.

In 1703 the Metbuen treaty was signed privileging Portugal as supplier of

wine to the English and the Dutch, thereby initiating a period which would

alter the national economy from then on, up to the present day.

What we learn…

In the 18th century, legislation by the Marquis of Pombal had

already established a register of the vineyards and rules

where established then, as well as later under D. Maria I, for

the preparation,

trade and consumption of Douro wines, stimulating

improvements in the quality of the Port Wine that was

exported by the General Company for the Cultivation of Upper

Douro Vineyards, the State controlled monopoly which came

to be the main source of wealth for the Portuguese Crown. The

extinction of this monopoly in 1834, liberalized the Port Wine

trade, with some negative consequences to its quality.

The traditional English, German, Danish or Dutch exporting

companies began to receive competition from Portuguese firms, originating

from the families of Douro estate owners and traders, from Vila Nova de

Gaia wholesalers or from investors and bankers of the city who imparted the

Douro region Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto with its dynamic, uniting

production, preparation and export of the ordinary vinho fino, which

gradually became Vinho do Porto to the detriment of the more commonplace

Port Wine.

The professional lives of the population of porto and Vila Nova de

Gaia revolved around Port Wine and its ancillary trades: coopers, caulkers,

rope-markers, boatmen and sailors, the men who loaded and unloaded the

ships that plyed the Douro or which entered by the bar, warehouse

employees and clerks; these would be the main professions that marked the

city and surrounding area over the centuries. The spate of industrialization in

the 19th century, assisted by the opening of the Douro Railway line and the

growth in the glass and cork industry, was complemented by the bottle

packing and packaging factories.

The bottling and packing of the wines, largely carried out by women,

considerably increased the population actively associated with this

industry.

During the 20th century, in 1933 the creation of the Port Wine

Institute,

currently the Institute of Douro and Port Wine, allowed a tighter

c

ontrol over the quality and authenticity of Port Wine, which is

exclusively

exported over the bar of the Douro and from the port of

Leixões. If the Douro region was the first area in the world to be

demarcated, in 18th century, Port Wine continues today to be the

only brand of world renowned wine, whose place of production does

not coincide with the place where it is conditioned and aged.

The main proprietors of the Upper Douro vineyards

were major landowners, above all nobility,

who possessed the necessary capital

for investment in viticulture.

They lived on their estates in the Upper Douro

for part of the year and spent the

remaining time in the city of Porto.

Various families from the rural nobility of the area, closely

connected to wine production and the subsequent selling of Port Wines,

began to construct houses in Porto suited to their status, contributing to

urban alterations that the city witnessed from the seventeen hundreds

onwards, extending into the 19th century. This relocation associated

with the Port Wine trade was not indifferent to the cosmopolitan quality

lent by the foreigners who settled, introducing new habits and fostering

the appearance of new buildings with different functions from those

previously existing. Porto was never a city of palaces or of large civic

edifices. Only from the 18th century do some houses of noble aspect

begin to appear, related above all to Douro families, who divided their

time between their properties on the Douro and the new activities that

wine production necessitated for a better administration of their assets,

filling influential positions in the municipal administration, in the

Customs, Senate of the Council or in the prestigious producers settled in

the city.

The cosmopolitan character that Porto assumed through

the increase in Port Wine exports was furthered by the

appearance of Neo-Palladian architecture, different from

that which was usual in the city, where all the buildings of

larger dimension could be attributed to the

unapologetically Baroque style of Nicoló Nasoni

This association between the architecture

probuced by the Board of Public Works and

the Neo-Palladian, through the influence and

friendship between João de Almada e Mello

and the English consul John

Whitebead, permitted an increased

monumentality in architecture that ceased to

be exclusively

religious in nature, extending to the

appearance of new infrastructures and

buildings of a secular character, with the

designation “Port-Wine architecture”.

About Baron Forrester:

Baron John James Forrester was a wine producer and

exporter, agriculturalist, cartographer, photographer, artist,

incontrovertible figure in the history of the Douro region and

Port Wine. He was born in Perth (Scotland) on 21st May

1809. He began to work in the offices of Offley in London

while he was still an adolescent, where he made his first

contact with Port Wine. He arrived in the city of Porto in

1831. He worked with his uncle James Forrester, who was a

Port Wine Merchant. In 1834, he began his cartographic

projects. He adapted a Rableo boat equipping it with

innovative material and during almost twelve years

frequently travelled between the Douro and Barca d’Alva,

exploring the river. He made an exhaustive cartographic

survey of the Douro. In 1840 he finished a map of the Douro

valley and its respective demarcated region entitled “Map of

the Wine District of the Alto-Douro”, which was printed in

London five years later.

In 1848, Forrester, completed the map

“Douro Portuguez e Paiz Adjacente até

Espanha”, published in London with

support from the Porto own Council

and the Porto Commercial Association.

For his contribution to the navigability

of the Douro Queen D. Maria II grants

total immunity from customs duties on

Forrester’s exportations to England. In

1855 King D. Fernando grants him the

title of Baron. On 12th May 1861,

Baron Forrester dies in a shipwreck in

the Cachão da Valeira.

ConclusionNow, we are much more intelligent and developed in terms of

culture. Trough the trip and this project work, we learn several things

of different areas, most of them unknown to us. Specifically trough the

museum, we learn more about wines, the influence of Britain in the

Porto city, a very important character: Baron John James Forrester and

we also learn about the commercial development n our country. This

trip was also good in terms of social experience, with it, we were

sociable with all our friends and teachers, and in our own case, we had

a different experience, we had to talk English with a woman, in the

youth hostel reception. That was without doubts a total fulfillment to

the trip because the main objective was see the influence of English in

the Porto city and in our case, know English was very useful. When the

visit to the Port Wine Museum ended we all know that the time to go

home had arrived. We stay a little sad because we enjoyed a lot this

trip, but is always good returns home and tell the news to everybody.

We think that this trip was very good succeeded and we expect repeat

the experience in order to spread more our horizons and our cultural

and social knowledge. We also want to thanks to teacher for having

unceasing us and for having given us this wonderful opportunity.

Bibliography

»»Books:

- ARAÚJO, Alexandra (2006). 250 Anos Depois. Porto; Greca Artes Gráficas.

»»Internet:- http://www.ivv.min-agricultura.pt/cultura/files/museus/museus.html

- http://www.cm-porto.pt/gen.pl?sid=cmp.sections/251&fokey=cmp.portur_museus/22

Work done by:

- Cátia Marisa Santos Nunes Nº7

- Tatiana de Fátima Martins Pinho

Nº24

11ºA