Douro Wine Company

This second stipulation ended up having a devastating effect on the Portuguese textile industry, leading to huge numbers of shepherds and weavers becoming unemployed.

Over the next few decades the resulting grape surplus, coupled with some unscrupulous examples of wine fraud and adulteration, led to a general decline in Port quality and a depression in prices.

These tactics increased the leverage of the British shippers and meant they could set whatever prices they wanted to pay the Portuguese grape growers.

Following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the Prime Minister of Portugal, the Marquis of Pombal, saw an opportunity to reestablish Portuguese control over the Port wine industry.

The lucrative revenues from the Port wine trade were needed to rebuild the country in the aftermath of the earthquake and the Marquis sought out ways to interject more Portuguese influence over the process.

His efforts lead to the founding of the Douro Wine Company and investing it with massive amounts of control, taking away the pricing leverage of the British shippers and reducing their role essentially to being "middlemen".

Uninhibited and reckless blending of inferior wine and foreign ingredients contributed to many substandard examples of Port flooding the London market.

The use of manure as fertilizer was prohibited, which served the benefit of limiting yields that would not only flood the market with over supply but also produce lower quality grapes.

The highest rated vineyards were designated as feitoria and were destined for the important British wine market and northern Europe.

They had complete control over mandating production limits by individual vineyards and set maximum and minimum prices that the British wine shippers would pay for their grapes.

Control of the Port wine trade was almost completely in Portuguese hands, with the exception of the British shippers who were still the primary warehouse holders and exporters.

As wine historian Hugh Johnson notes "...they were now reduced to mere middlemen who were told what they could buy and at what price, and where they could sell it.

The Douro Wine Company was founded by the Portuguese Prime Minister, the Marquis of Pombal, to bring more Portuguese control and oversight to the Port wine trade.
In the 17th and early 18th century, British wine merchants worked to consolidate their control over the Port wine industry which included building large warehouses in Vila Nova de Gaia (pictured) where they could store long term wine they bought on credit from Portuguese growers.
One of the first actions of the Douro Wine Company was to delineate the boundaries of the Douro wine region, making it the world's first regional appellation that was continuously regulated by a governing body.
The fact that the Douro Wine Company also bought and sold Port wine on the international market led to charges of the company having a conflict of interest.
Miguelites, loyal to the former King of Portugal Miguel I, blew up the brandy storage depot of the Douro Wine Company which led to nearly 3.4 million US gallons (13,000 m 3 ) of boiling hot Port flooding into the Douro river.