introduction our trip to porto was a new experience. with it, we spread our cultural and social...
TRANSCRIPT
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…)
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 ;-(
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”.
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