18th Century

The 18th Century was marked by Marquês de Pombal, who took a series of measures to encourage the production of wine in the Douro region.

The growth in viticulture marked the century. In 1703 the Methuen Treaty was signed, where England gives preference to Portuguese wines over Spanish and French ones.

Wine commerce was centred in the north of Portugal and was dominated by the English who settled in the city of Porto. As exports increased, producers started worrying more about quantity than quality and ended up ruining the commerce of Portuguese wines.

On September 10th 1756, in an attempt to fight the crisis, Marquês de Pombal obtained a royal licence to found the Companhia Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro, an organisation that would check the quality of the wines, determine their prices and establish rules for their production and commerce. This ended up making of Douro one of the first demarcated regions in the world. Marquês de Pombal also established that white and red grape varieties should be planted separately.

At the end of the 18th Century most wine exports consisted of fortified and dessert wines, especially Port, Madeira and Moscatel.

In the same century, in 1712, Vicencio Alarte published the first book on Portuguese vine and wine.