As for the appearance or appearance of wine there is no history based on concrete facts (only a hypothesis or probability). The probability is that it has arisen in South Asia more concretely in Japan and China, where Europe and the Far East have spread or extended. The cultivation of the vine was abandoned in these countries, but progressed in Europe mainly in countries such as Greece and Rome. The Romans propagated the vine for their empire, especially in Hispania and Gaul, where for the first time the barrel was used to store and conserve the wine. Later on, as a result of the European colonial expansion, the vineyard culture reached distant regions, where good soil qualities and climatic conditions were available.
In Greece, the wine had a darker color and was generally drunk with water (drinking it without water was considered unruly procedure). Even kept in barrels, wineskins, or the like, wine always maintained contact with the air. Full maturation was only possible from the use of the bottle and the stopper.
From the average age the production and the quality of the wine have lost much of their efficiency. The need for wine for the religious service was one of the factors propelling the concern for the care of the vineyard particularly ecclesiastical.
It was thanks to this concern of the ecclesiastical part mainly the monks that the quality of the wine was recovered. The use of bottles and corks for wine conservation became common in the mid-seventeenth century, and it was precisely in that same century that the production of wine began to suffer a great impact and thus translated its export to other countries.
History of wine in Portugal
Despite many doubts and myths, it is thought that the vineyard was first cultivated in the Tagus Valley and Sado, about 2,000 years BC, by the Tartessos (name by which the Greek people knew the first civilization of the West ).
The Phoenicians, about the tenth century BC, eventually took over the trade of the Tartessos, including wine. It is thought that they have forwarded some vine varieties that they have inserted in Lusitania.
In the 7th century BC the Greeks settled in the Iberian Peninsula and developed viticulture, giving an individual attention to the art of producing wine.
It is believed that in the sixth century BC the Celtic people, to whom the vine was already intimate, would have directed to the Peninsula the varieties of vine that they cultivated.
With the Romanization in the Peninsula there was a modernization as regards the culture of the vine, as the introduction of new multiplicities and the improvement of certain cultivation techniques, namely pruning. During the same period, the cultivation of the vineyard had made considerable progress, given the need to often send wine to Rome, where consumption increased sharply and only simple production did not satisfy demand.
It was from this time (sixth and seventh centuries AD) that the crushing expansion of Christianity took place. Wine then becomes indispensable for the sacred act of communion. The canonical documents of the time showed the obligatory application of the pure wine of the vine in the celebration of the mass.
At the beginning of the 8th century other waves of invaders followed, this time coming from the South. With the Arab influence began a new period for the vitivinicultura Ibérica. The Koran forbade the consumption of fermented drinks, where wine is included. However, they were tolerant towards Christians, applying to the farmers a policy based on benevolence and protection, as long as they gave themselves to the rural work, to make the best use of them.
Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, wine gained much impotence, and was highlighted as the main exported product. Existing documents certify the importance of vineyards and wine in Portuguese territory. The wines of Portugal began to be notorious even in northern Europe.
It was more precisely in the second half of the fourteenth century that wine production began to evolve, renewing itself and inciting its export.
By the middle of the sixteenth century, Lisbon was the largest center for consumption and distribution of wine in the empire - Portuguese maritime expansion carried this product to the four corners of the world.
In 1703, Portugal and England signed the Treaty of Methuen, where a characteristic regime was established for the entrance of Portuguese wines in England. The export of wine then experienced a new growth.
In the 18th century, winemaking was influenced by the strong personality of the Marquis of Pombal. Thus, the great region benefiting from a series of protectionist measures was the Alto Douro region and the famous Port Wine. As a result of the fame this wine had acquired, there was an overwhelming demand for it from other countries in Europe, apart from England, the usual importer.
The high appreciations that the Port Wine reached caused the producers to worry more about the quantity than with the quality of the wines exported, which they suspected or predicted the origin of a serious crisis. To put an end to this crisis, the Marquês de Pombal created on September 10, 1756, the General Company of Agriculture of the Vineyards of Alto Douro, to control the production and trade of the region's wines. Therefore, according to some researchers, this was the first officially defined region in the wine world. The 19th century was an obscure period for winemaking, due to the phylloxera plague, which first appeared in the Douro region in 1865, quickly spread throughout the country, thus destroying most of the wine regions.
In 1907/1908, the procedure for regulating other Portuguese designations of origin began. In addition to the wine producing region and the Douro table wines, the production regions of some wines that were already known, such as Madeira, Moscatel de Setúbal, Carcavelos, Dão, Colares and Green wine.
In 1933 was created the Federation of Vitivinicultores of the Center and South of Portugal, with the fundamental objective the regulation of the trade of the wine. The Federation was followed by the National Wine Board (JNV) (1937), and the Board followed the Institute of Vine and Wine (IVV) (1986), a corporation adjusted to the structures established by the new market policy resulting from accession to the European Community.
A new perspective emerges in the Portuguese economy and, consequently, in viticulture. The concept of Denomination of Origin was consummated with the community legislation, and the distribution of "Regional Wine" was created for table wines with a geographical indication, strengthening the quality policy of Portuguese wines.
With the objectives of managing the Denominations of Origin and Regional Wine, applying, monitoring and complying with its regulations, it was necessary to create Regional Wine Commissions, which has a fundamental role in preserving the quality and prestige of Portuguese wines.
Currently, 33 Denominations of Origin and 8 Geographical Indications are recognized and protected throughout Portugal.