Port: Viticulture

Viticulture in the Douro altered radically in the 1970s and 1980s, perhaps more than at any time since phylloxera swept through the region at the end of the 19th century, leaving many hillsides abandoned. The most noticeable change is the river itself, which was progressively dammed in the 1960s to form a string of narrow lakes.

Methods of cultivation have also changed the Douro landscape. Faced with an acute shortage of labour at the end of the 1960s, along with escalating costs, growers began to look for alternatives to the tiny, step-like terraces built with high retaining walls in the 19th century. The first bulldozers arrived in the late 1970s to gouge out a new system of terraces called patamares. Inclined ramps bound together by seasonal vegetation replaced the costly retaining walls and, with wider spacing between the vines (resulting in a vine density of 3,500 vines per ha (1,420 per acre) as opposed to 6,000 on some traditional terraces), small caterpillar tractors can circulate in the vineyards.