2016Old Vineyards of Portugal - First Day Cover

Although they receive prominent mentions in the labels on the back and front of the wine bottles that appear on our tables over the years, the “oldness” of these vines is not simply a matter of syntax or semantics. Old Vineyards are a whole way of life. It might well be impossible to pin down an overarching definition for them that would cover the whole world of wine, even if we were to confine it just to Portugal. An old vineyard might be over a hundred years old in the Douro or Dão regions, while it might be only fifty or sixty years old in the Alentejo. Often there is a specific cut-off point in time, namely the phylloxera pest, which reached Portugal at the end of the 19th century, and decimating vineyards all over Europe. There may be vineyards that are older than this here or there, but they are very rare indeed.