Dear Friends,
for me, Port Wine is frozen history. It enables us to appreciate something from the past - a footstep in the sand of time, a greeting from previous generations.
Imagine you find yourself an affordable Vintage 1908 and sit together with some friends and enjoy a great evening.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to attach some faces to this wine? The women that helped harvesting it? How did the storage look where it was stored? Who was responsible to insert the cork into the bottle?
I think to know how the world looked back then helps us to appreciate our old Port Wine even more.
Please see here a few photos from my photo stream on Flickr. All these photos were taken between 1900 and 1908.
Here are the women that worked hard for us in the hot sun to harvest the grapes:
At the end of the harvesting, the people are getting paid:
Let's get the wine towards the river:
Now we have to get the wine from the Douro Valley to Gaia:
Wouldn't this be nice - to have these "pipas" nowadays? A few hundred barrels of Vintages from around 1900? This is the storage of Silva & Cosens:
The pipas are getting ready to receive the new wine:
These are the most important guys - they are in charge of tasting, blending and quality control:
These girls are responsible for getting the cork into the bottle - but please don't blame them if 100 years later your wine is slightly corked...
Maybe it's because I'm in the midlife-crisis - but I really think that I would have loved to work together with this group of beautiful Portuguese women:
And from Gaia the wine is going to be exported in countries all over the world:
So, I hope you liked my little sentimental journey into the past. Let us thank all these hard working, lousy paid people for their efforts - without them we wouldn't be able to enjoy these old vintages nowadays...
Greetings,
Christian
Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
- Christian
- Cockburn’s Special Reserve
- Posts: 39
- Joined: 22:03 Tue 26 May 2009
- Location: Grand Cayman - Cayman Islands
Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
"I believe I am responsible for 4% of the port wine consumption in my country..."
Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
A glass to everyone who makes port possible,
these are incredible, I thank you for them Christian.
Hopefully us port nuts in this generation will capture some of the love the gets put into the bottles nowadays!
these are incredible, I thank you for them Christian.
Hopefully us port nuts in this generation will capture some of the love the gets put into the bottles nowadays!
Disclosure: Distributor of Quevedo wines and Quinta do Gomariz
Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
Very good. I’ve never tried the Silva & Cosens 1908 if I ever do the pictures will come to mind.
- Alex Bridgeman
- Graham’s 1948
- Posts: 14916
- Joined: 13:41 Mon 25 Jun 2007
- Location: Berkshire, UK
Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
These are fantastic pictures. Thank you for sharing them.
Top Ports in 2023: Taylor 1896 Colheita, b. 2021. A perfect Port.
2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
2024: Niepoort 1900 Colheita, b.1971. A near perfect Port.
- JacobH
- Quinta do Vesuvio 1994
- Posts: 3300
- Joined: 16:37 Sat 03 May 2008
- Location: London, UK
- Contact:
Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
Those are fun pictures; thanks for sharing them.
Has anyone else tried balancing a case of Port on their head as the women are doing in the last photo?
Has anyone else tried balancing a case of Port on their head as the women are doing in the last photo?
Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
No, but it sounds like a good idea for the basis of a drinking game at the Xmas Off-lineJacobH wrote: Has anyone else tried balancing a case of Port on their head as the women are doing in the last photo?
"The first duty of Port is to be red"
Ernest H. Cockburn
Ernest H. Cockburn
- JacobH
- Quinta do Vesuvio 1994
- Posts: 3300
- Joined: 16:37 Sat 03 May 2008
- Location: London, UK
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Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
First person to drop the case has to drink its contents?DRT wrote:No, but it sounds like a good idea for the basis of a drinking game at the Xmas Off-lineJacobH wrote: Has anyone else tried balancing a case of Port on their head as the women are doing in the last photo?
Re: Who made our Vintage 1908 possible? - Great old photos...
Very nice pics.... top
Any time not spend drinking port, is a waste of time.