The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-12-02
A JAUNI IN PORTUGAL.
1HRO Ugh THE HEA ri OFTHE PAIz
DO VINHO,

r".A""S 'Tori' wine Is Mahe-InNer-
esting Facts Concerning One of tn,
Greatest Industries in the World.
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
and Courier.1
Oporto, Portugal Oct 30.-Every-
body knows that this old Portuguese
city IS the home Of the famous "port"
WINE, but few people have any concep-
ton of the magnitude of the industry.
1nough the wine expectation has fallen
OF greatly in the last decade, owing to
the vine disease, phylloxera, which has
diminished their production it still av-
erages over 301 900 hectoletres a year.
One firm alone-the Vinicolla company,
whose enormous warehouses tine the
riverside of Nova da Gaia, the suburb
opposite .Oporto-carries stock val
ued at two million dollars, while its, an
faual sales reach the million dollar mark
An even greater business is conducted
by the Ferreira Bros, the largest port
wine producers in the world, in their
"CDmmercio Agvicola' and "Compania
dos Vinhos do Porto An Englishman
named Anderson deals only in the
choicest vintages of the early part of
the century-six million litres year of
brilliant amber, golden white and dark
fruity ports, the poorest of which
wholesale at ten dollars the gallon.
There are scores of other wtne-mer-
chants-Portuguese English, German,
French and Russian, whose endless
vaults and tunnelled cellars line the
southern bank of the Douro for miles.
K We have spent busy week investi-
eating the (to us) novel industry, in
Guiding railway jaunt to Regoa, the
very center of the world-famed Paiz do
Vinho, or country of the vine,' on the
upper Douro, near the Spanish frontier.
Here Senior Antonio Bernardo Ferret
ra, Portuguese multi-millionaire of
Oporto, owns a dozen wine-farms, or
4quintas,' as they are called in the
vernacular, and spends a portion of each
year, with his family, on one of them
Being so fortunate as to receive a cor
dial invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Fer
home we drove to the railway station
one early morning, making a wide de-
tour around the La Sc quarter, the
plague-infested heart of the city, where
those twin reapers, disease and starva-
ton, vigorously hemmed in by a Gordon
of police, are garnering amounted har-
vests. 1t is about four hours ride from
Oporto to Regoa, sixty-four miles from
Lisbon. The road is the most pictur-
esque scenic line in the peninsula, run
ming through mountains and canyos,
along deep gorges of the Doura, past
quaint villages and peasant cottages.
pines and palm trees, and some of he
riches vineyards ID the world. Right
here, on these steep and stony, but
sunny mountain slopes, with their vel
low, brown, mica, schist soil, the BIAS
tardo" grape thrives to perfection, and
the very best wine that ever delighted
mortal lips is made.
The country home of the Ferreiras,
called the Quinta do Vesuvio ("Garden
Of Vesuvius"), affords a graceful pro-
totype of life in the land of vineyards
Their elegant villa, in the Roman style,
a wide view of the noun
Lains and vine-filled valley, olive groves
and pasture lands dotted with sleek
cattle; and of the Douro, dwindled to a
narrow stream so near it's head-waters.
From his fiat house-top the happy
planter may watch the progress of his
wines to market, in the quaint native
oarcas rapellos, or f1at-bottomed |
oarges Each with an enormous rud-
Ter, plotted with greatest skill and care
past innumerab BILE reefs shadows and
'apids down to the Oporto store houses.
Senior Ferreira and his charming
wife and daughters were tireless in
heir gracious courteses, showing us
very detail of wine-making, to its
lnal curing" In vast cellars tunnelled |
INTO the solid rock. To further exern-
,lify rural life in Portugal, they gave
,all in our honor, in the great press
louse, it's wooden pillars hidden by liv-
ng wines covered with punches of lus-
ious grapes, cut from the vineyard for
he occasion. The peasants in their
,ipsy-like costumes in all the colors of
oseph's coat the men with short vel
'et trousers and jackets, white blouses,
ringed sashes and golden hoops in Their
airs; the women wonderfully bedlz-
ened with futtering ribbons and bits
f tinsel, f1lagree necklaces, bracelets,
rowns, brooches, the work of the
Jorld-famed goldsmiths' of Oporto; the
TRANCE dancing, half DANA, half fan
ango, and the music of the local or
hestra, guitar and mandolin, mingted
18th the sharp click of castinets, the
asping of gourd fiddles and the rattle
t table-forks shaken in glass bottles,
re things to be long remembered. And
hen the wines-old. white and amber
ued ports, distilled more than half
entury ago, not to be rashly imbibed
ut every drop more precious than gold
} sight and smell.
In the manufacture of port there
re no secrets, and no reserve in the
hole process of vinification, all The
orld being welcome to witness every
nalIest detail, which seems to show
nat there is no crookedness to be con-
,aled. 1t has been falsely asserted
,at Oporto wine is the most adultera
ID of fermented beverages, but the
nth is that he who drinks a glass of
drinks as nearly natural and pure
,rm of concentrated grape-juice as ii
POSSIBLE to produce If ever adulter-
ted at all, it has been merely to salts {
, public taste. at greater expense and
ouble to the makers than unmiXed
.ape-iuice. For example: In England,
here these wines find by far tiIair