ThePortForum.com

Talking to a portuguese colleague today about the last tasting I attended (the RAF Club 21 bottle) and she had never heard of the producers. She went on to say that they must be exporters only, that Gaia was the big one natively and that the ones I named (the usual "big" ones in my opinion she didn't know either.

Which prompted me to wonder how big they are in terms of annual pipe / litre and whether that is for export or local consumption.

Anyone know?

The numbers must be out there, but I'm not sure if they are readily available online.

The English shippers of old were primarily concerned with export, and primarily the export of ruby ports (including vintage) to England and the English speaking world.

The Portuguese merchants were more focused on the domestic, european, and latin markets, and more focused on tawny ports.

Go into a restaurant in Portugal and ask simply for a 'porto' and you will normally be given a tawny (or colheita, if the restaurant has a reputation to maintain) from a producer you may never have heard of.