This edited excerpt, from the new, second edition of Richard Mayson’s book The Wines of Portugal, published by Académie du Vin Library, delves into Portuguese vineyards and some of the distinctive grapes found in them.
It was the wine writer Hugh Johnson who described Portugal’s vineyards as “a site of special scientific and sensuous interest.” This was back in the mid-1990s, when Portugal was still something of a terra incognita after decades of insularity. The isolation was not just geographic but also political. Facts and figures were still hard to come by, and there was a feeling at the time that Portugal was hiding something. That “something” was described in my first book on Portugal, published in 1992, as “a treasure trove of indigenous grapes,” a phrase that has been regularly repeated and appears to have stuck. With amusing and evocative names, such as Tinto Cão (translated as “dog red”) and Borrado das Moscas (“fly droppings”), there seemed to be a mysterious new realm of grapes waiting to be uncovered.
Since the 1990s, much progress has been made, but that treasure trove is still in the process of being unlocked. Traditionally, Portuguese vineyards were set out in a haphazard fashion, with numerous different grape varieties cohabiting the same small plot. In an extreme example, at Quinta do Crasto’s Maria Teresa vineyard, in the Douro, 54 different grape varieties have been identified growing together in a plot of less than 5 hectares (12 acres). For growers eking out a living from tiny parcels of vines, the interplanting of numerous different grape varieties was a good insurance policy, particularly after the double whammy of oidium and phylloxera in the nineteenth century. A variety susceptible to, say, uneven flowering could be offset by another, more resistant grape that might itself be prone to bunch rot. A grape that ripened to high levels of sugar but provided little color could be offset by a variety with thick skins and plenty of color. In this way, in Portugal’s often unpredictable Atlantic climate, growers could assure themselves of a reasonably consistent crop of grapes in all but the most challenging of years. As early as 1531, a writer named Rui Fernandes observed that “if some varieties fail to yield well in a particular year the others would compensate.”
Although a number of early authorities commented on individual Portuguese varieties, it wasn’t until the mid-nineteenth century that the first of many attempts was made to list and categorize the principal Portuguese grapes. With Port wine having been an important export commodity since the seventeenth century, it is hardly surprising that much of the research took place in the Douro. In 1853, the baron Joseph James Forrester complained that “an infinite number of different wines could be produced in the Douro if only there could be a separation of grape varieties.” The situation was further confounded by the phylloxera epidemic, during which a number of the more troublesome European vinifera varieties were driven close to extinction. Writing in 1876, when phylloxera was at its height, the Visconde de Villa Maior lists a total of 28 grapes commonly planted in the Douro at the time, including Pé-agudo (”pointed foot”) and Entreverde (”green between”), both of which have long since left the local lexicon. Others, including Tinta Castelloa (probably Castelão), Tinto Cão, Mureto (Moreto), Touriga, and Tinta Amarela (Trincadeira), are still widely planted either in the Douro or elsewhere in Portugal, but the Visconde de Villa Maior added a proviso that still has some validity today: “It must be borne in mind that the same kinds [of grapes] are known in different places by different names; and what still more thwarts the study of ampelography, is that the same name is often used in different places to denote very dissimilar kinds. To avoid any confusion and mistakes that might arise from this species of anarchy, the best plan would be to verify their synonymes [sic], by giving a complete description of all the kinds cultivated – an investigation quite indispensable in making a methodical classification; – yet we are still far from seeing this undertaking realised.”
This daunting undertaking was partly realized at the very end of the nineteenth century by the professor Bernardino Cincinnato da Costa (1866–1930). His thorough survey of Portugal’s vineyards was written in both Portuguese and French and published in a heavy, handsome tome titled O Portugal Vinicola (Le Portugal Vinicole) for the Paris Exhibition in 1900. The book is illustrated with a series of detailed (and beautiful) botanical watercolors, by Alfredo Roque Gameiro, depicting the principal grape varieties of the day. These include Arinto, Moscatel de Setúbal, Roupeiro, João de Santarém, Sousão, Ramisco, Tinto Cão, and Touriga Nacional, all of which are significant to a greater or lesser extent over a century later.
Cincinnato da Costa’s authoritative work has never really been equaled, but he was followed by Pedro Bravo and Duarte d’Oliveira, who traveled the country and, in a manual titled Viticultura Moderna (1916), listed the names of 900 grape varieties growing in Portuguese vineyards. Bravo and Oliveira readily admitted that many of these are the same varieties with different names and complain, like Forrester over half a century before, about the lack of research to date. On Madeira and in much of mainland Portugal, the picture was further complicated post-phylloxera by the widespread use of productive direct producers and hybrid varieties, which were planted with and among various vines of the European Vitis vinifera species. Thus, Portugal descended into an even deeper state of viticultural anarchy.
Since the 1990s, much has been done by the Instituto da Vinha e do Vinho (IVV) to sort out the confusing synonyms that led ampelographers in all sorts of directions, often chasing the same grape. For example, Rabo de Ovelha (”tail of the ewe”), Rabo de Carneiro (“tail of the sheep”), and Rabigato (”tail of the cat”) were names given to the same grape planted in different parts of the country—at least the tail in the name was a clue. But within Portugal, little pockets of vineyard developed, seemingly in complete isolation from one another. Although neighboring parishes often cultivated the same or similar grape varieties, they christened them with different names. Wry amusement quickly gives way to intense frustration for those studying Portuguese vineyards, for not only are they unbeknownst to outsiders, but many of Portugal’s older vineyards are still a mystery to the growers themselves.
Turbulent early twentieth-century politics meant that little was undertaken in the vineyards until the Salazar regime gained a grip on the country in the 1930s. Isolated attempts at varietal research were pursued by Port shippers in the Douro, but it was not until the Junta Nacional do Vinho (JNV) was formed in 1937 that a more coordinated approach became apparent. In the dark days of World War II, against a background of falling prices and overproduction, the JNV began drawing up a cadastro (register) of Portuguese vineyards. The introduction to the two lengthy preparatory volumes published in 1942 rather sums up the spirit of the age. Representing the Federation of Wine Producers in the Center and South of Portugal, Albano Castro Homem de Melo triumphantly declared, “We trust . . . that our determination will not slow the rhythm of our march ahead. At the end there is victory.”
If there was a victory, it was Pyrrhic. Although the cadastro was eventually completed, it did little either to advance or to clarify the situation in Portuguese vineyards. In fact, the postwar march toward cooperativization proved to be a step backward. Putting quantity before quality, in the 1960s and early 1970s, the professor José Francisco de Leão Ferreira de Almeida, of the Estação Agronómica Nacional at Oeiras, near Lisbon, developed a series of grape varieties, some with less than promising names from a qualitative perspective, including Vaca Leiteira (“milk cow”) and Carrega Burros (“load the donkeys”). These varieties were widely distributed throughout Estremadura, the Ribatejo, and Dão, where growers delivering consignments of grapes to the new generation of cooperative wineries were paid by weight rather than based on any intrinsic quality. Without varietal separation, high-yielding vinifera and hybrid grapes were simply mixed with traditional varieties, and the quality of wines from the Dão region in particular took a significant turn for the worse.
The revolution of 1974–1975 brought the cooperative program to a halt. When democracy was restored in 1976, Portugal’s much weakened economy was in no position to finance improvements in either the winery or the vineyard. Despite the political turmoil, Portugal’s first coordinated attempt at varietal research was undertaken privately in the Douro during the 1970s. In 1981, after five years of intensive investigation led by José Rosas and João Nicolau de Almeida, of the Port shippers Ramos Pinto, five red varieties were selected and promoted as the leading grapes in the region. Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, and Tinto Cão became known colloquially as the top cinco, and 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres) of these varieties (mostly Touriga Francesa and Tinta Roriz) were subsequently planted in varietal plots under the Integrated Rural Development Project of Trás-os-Montes (or PDRITM, also known as the World Bank Scheme) of the 1980s.
The rest of the country had to await the arrival of the European Union. Immediately prior to Portugal’s accession in 1986, the Ministry of Agriculture drew up a list of authorized and recommended grapes for each and every demarcated region. This included some strange anomalies, but it represented a significant step toward regaining control of Portugal’s chaotic vineyards. At much the same time, the professor Paul Truel, of the viticultural research station at Montpellier, in France, undertook the first thorough research into Portuguese grape varieties and their synonyms since Cincinnato da Costa’s masterful work almost a century earlier. Once the funds began to flow in from Brussels, priority was given to weeding out direct producers and hybrids to replace them with approved European stock.
The Atlantic island of Madeira faced the greatest challenge. At the end of the 1980s, over half of the island’s output originated from direct producers. Most of the island’s wine was still masquerading in bottle as Sercial, Verdelho, Bual, and Malvasia, yet these so-called noble grapes made up just six percent of total production. Although this situation has improved considerably with the vinifera Tinta Negra now the main grape, Madeira is still hampered by the lack of an accurate or up-to-date cadastro of the island’s vineyards.
On the mainland, the varietal planting that took place in the Douro in the 1980s has been emulated gradually elsewhere. Growers in central and southern Portugal flirted with international varieties such as Cabernet and Chardonnay, but, apart from the Ribatejo, where there is something of a precedent for these grapes, they have made relatively few inroads. Syrah is the only international variety that has been relatively widely adopted, though the varietal mix in Bairrada and the Lisboa region in particular has greatly diversified. Although Portugal maintains a considerable amount of pride in its indigenous grapes, this is not xenophobia. Varietal experiments that began in the 1970s and 1980s have revealed some high-quality grape varieties, many of which have been adopted just as enthusiastically by foreigners growing grapes in Portugal as they have been by the Portuguese themselves. Some, including Touriga Nacional, have made their way to other countries, including France. By the mid-1990s, a sufficient area of vineyard had been replanted for winemakers to consider making varietal wines from indigenous grapes. When the Portuguese trade office in London proposed to organize the first-ever tasting of Portuguese varietal wines in 1997, however, this was met with a certain amount of resistance and misunderstanding. Varietal fever subsequently became so highly contagious that many producers abandoned the time-honored blends that defined their regions. On the other hand, the move toward varietal labeling has created an international awareness of Portugal’s unique indigenous grapes.
Recent climatic extremes have prompted a return to the use of traditional grape varieties in parts of Portugal. Many of the newer, and what were thought to be better, grape varieties (cépages améliorateurs in French parlance) in the 1980s and 1990s have proved to be less heat and drought resistant than the grapes that they replaced. Parts of the Douro and Alentejo that have suffered recently from extreme heat are returning to a more traditional varietal mix, with red grapes such as Touriga Franca and Moreto and the white Antão Vaz finding favor. Another challenge posed by climate change is a lack of winter dormancy in some parts of Portugal (especially Madeira, with its mild winters). This puts much greater stress on the vine, and a lack of cold weather also harbors insects and fungal disease.
It has taken nearly 250 years for Portugal to establish a workable template of wine regions. The Marquis of Pombal, the prime minister during the reign of José I, started the process when he first drew a boundary around the Douro in 1755, and demarcation has continued in fits and starts ever since. Ten regions were demarcated between 1908 and 1979, but, until the mid-1980s, many of the best Portuguese wines continued to be sold without any regional identity. Merchant firms scoured the country for good wine and blended and bottled their finest as garrafeiras. This category put the merchant’s own name before either grape variety or regional provenance. Only when the Portuguese joined the ranks of the European Union in 1986 were they given notice to change their ways, and, over the recent decades, an entirely new pyramid of wine regions emerged: Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC) or Denominação de Origem Protegida (DOP), Indicação Geográfica Protegida (IGP) or Vinho Regional, and Vinho de Mesa (table wine).
The control of Portugal’s wine sector (with the exception of Port, Douro wine, and Madeira) is the remit of the IVV. Based in Lisbon but with regional representation, the IVV’s responsibilities are wide-ranging. In its own words, the IVV is responsible for “participating in and accompanying the wine sector with the object of improving quality, reinforcing competitiveness at an international level as well as the sustainable development of viticulture and wine production.” It is also responsible for the Sistema Nacional Integrado de Informação da Vinha e do Vinho (i.e., information and statistics, including the national vineyard register), the collection of taxes from the sector, and the coordination and application of measures to manage Portugal’s vineyard heritage.
One area where the IVV made useful progress is in the naming of individual grape varieties. In accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants and the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, it has drawn up a list of permitted grapes, the names of which can appear on the labels of wines designated as DOC and Vinho Regional. The IVV currently lists over 340 grape varieties, over half of which are red, with the majority indigenous to Portugal (it claims that at least 250 are indigenous).
My book profiles over 130 different grape varieties, including quality assessments and some of the best and most representative wines and their producers. The grape profile that follows is for Ramisco, a variety still mostly ungrafted and planted on its own roots, and surely one of the most distinctive in Portugal.
Virtually confined to the region of Colares, northwest of Lisbon, Ramisco is thought to be related to the red Trincadeira and white Sercial, which is also known locally as Esgana Cão (”dog strangler”). Cincinnato da Costa lavished praise on this remarkable grape, describing it as capable of making wines with “freshness, finesse, perfume, flavor and softness – lacking nothing.” Back in the nineteenth century, this was quite easy to say, but, in the twentieth century, this grape suffered a steady decline until, by the 1990s, it was hard to describe Ramisco with any certainty. Fortunately, Ramisco has made a comeback, and Cincinnato da Costa was right in that it is capable of remarkable perfume; but it can also show an astringency verging on meanness if not handled correctly. In Colares, with its roots embedded in calcareous clay below a thick layer of protective sand, Ramisco resisted phylloxera in the nineteenth century, and vineyards that remain there are still ungrafted (pé franco). It is not known how much Ramisco remains, but there can be no more than about 15 hectares (37 acres) in Colares, with a few more scattered plots between Sintra and Mafra.
Ramisco has open bunches and is therefore resistant to rot on the mild but humid Atlantic coast; however, it has a tendency to become top-heavy and topple over, with the grapes dragging on the sand unless they are propped up by either pontões (bamboo props) or wires. Ramisco is late ripening, often harvested in October, and rarely ripens much more than 12 Baumé (although in 2025, Ramilo Wines harvested Ramisco at 13.2 Baumé). The legal minimum alcohol for red Colares is just 10% ABV, and, in the past, many of the wines could be thin and mean. Ramisco wines rarely have much color, but they are capable of great finesse, usually after aging in seasoned wood (oak or sometimes mahogany or chestnut) for up to five years. A well-made red Colares is capable of development in bottle over many years: a 1965 Collares [sic] from Viúva Gomes tasted in 2019 was still magnificent, suave and elegant while retaining its characteristic Atlantic astringency. Ramisco is capable of greatness, as a new generation of growers and winemakers in Colares will attest.
This excerpt first appeared in The Wines of Portugal, written by Richard Mayson and published by Académie du Vin Library in June 2026. It has been edited and adapted for style, length, and audience. Used with permission.
Richard Mayson is also the author of the Académie du Vin Library books Port and the Douro and Madeira: The Islands and Their Wines.
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