In a year in which harvests anticipated an abrupt drop in regions like the Douro – the drop was around 40% -, producers combine this fact with others that have caused them wrinkles: the fact that wine consumption has been falling consistently in recent years. A behavior that has been transversal to all countries and all generations, and which has not been mitigated, quite the contrary, by the recommendations of the World Health Organization, which since the pandemic has not tired of issuing recommendations on 0% alcohol consumption, to avoid harmful consequences for health. Let’s look, then, at the case of Port wine, which was once one of the sector’s biggest sources of revenue, but which has suffered even more than table wine from the reduction in consumption: since the beginning of the century, sales of this type of wine have already dropped by around 20%. And, despite producers’ efforts to increase public interest, not even the British market – Porto’s traditional consumer – is managing to counter this trend. Hence the option is being considered something bolder – and perhaps more sensible. Increase the price. And increase it to values that make any Portuguese person raise their eyebrows, but which make the luxury and ultra-luxury market (where, it seems, wine is now also consumed) rub their hands with delight.
In this edition we bring you the story of the most recent launch of Menin Douro Estates, a company created by multimillionaire businessman Rubens Menin, who has been acquiring properties – and companies such as Horta Osório – in the north of the country for a few years. Since launching on the market, it has only sold quality references, with its table wines having an average price of €40. These are wines of indisputable quality, and in the higher ranges, this value is increased by one figure. With the new Port wine, he decided to up the ante even further: it’s €1700 for a bottle of an 80-year-old Tawny, which joins a range of references that have followed the same path. For example, Quinta da Pacheca has a bottle costing more or less the same and Van Zeller’s & Co surprised the market last year with a trilogy of Port wines that sold for €22,000.
Why? Because although it may seem like they are selling just one wine, they are actually selling decades of work, knowledge, storage and risk. Launching an 80-year-old Port wine does not mean that that particular wine is 80 years old. This means that the best batches of wine were chosen, all of them aging in casks for decades in the cellars of Vila Nova de Gaia or on Douro farms, and whose average age, when put together, amounts to 80 years. Several generations of winegrowers and winemakers worked for each bottle; of manual workers; of businesspeople. It may seem like just a pretty story – which it is -, but the truth is that Port Wine has been part of the history, tradition and economy of our country for hundreds of years. And, in times of rush, of unbridled consumption of ephemeral products and of a gaze inevitably focused on the next great discovery, a Port Wine is a true time capsule whose price is justified by its calmness, by the accumulated experience it stores and shows and, also, by its exclusivity. Portugal is a small country, whose wine production will never be able to compete with Italy, France or even Spain. But it has something that no one else has: the oldest demarcated wine region (the Douro) and Port Wine, which conquered the world several centuries ago and which many have tried to replicate without success. Is this the path to salvation for the wine sector? I can’t say, and I have doubts that it is. But I know that, at least, it’s beautiful to see the Portuguese trying to value something that no one else has around the globe. And for that reason alone, the value starts to seem fairer. Especially for companies that, for decades, invest to be able, generations later, to sell something whose grandparents or great-grandparents started working.