For The Love Of Port

As we approach September, we enter the most critical part of the season.

I am hoping that there are other contributors to this forum who are either on the ground in the Douro, or who are in close contact with people who are.

My most recent information says that the big fires are out, but new ones are still breaking out. The drought, however, has not broken, and the forecast and satellite photos show clear skies and high temperatures.

It would appear that in the absence of rain, this will be a harvest of raisins, but a wet spell followed by fine picking conditions could produce a small crop of very high quality.

What else do people know?

My biz partner, Mario Ferreira spent last week in the Douro. Berries are very small and lacking necessary juice due to moderate heat levels and extended dry weather. 2005 does not look very promising. The fires have not been seen much around the Douro region, with a very few exceptions. The vineyards do not offer the type of food that forests do for fires and there are many forests in Portugal. That said, with the help of the EU friends, most of the fires are now snuffed or well under control ... although new ones can and do still erupt sporadically.

Rain is at last forecast - a weather system is sweeping across the Bay of Biscay, and the CNN forecast for Vila Real is rain for Tuesday (6th).

The satellite photo suggests the rain may be modest however.

From the CNN weather reports, the rain appears to have been modest, and the temperature relatively cool.

The harvest normally gets underway about now, and the forecast is for dry and quite hot weather for the next few days.

Does anyone know what sort of Baume readings they're getting?

When I was in the Douro last August, people at quintas told me that some quintas would start as early as september 5 with harvesting.

There have been some fires in the area, but not very much. A complete hillside was burnt near Provesende and there were a couple of burnt down areas in the Douro Superior near Vila Nova de Foz Coa. The day we arrived there the valley was completely hidden in smoke due to a fire near Mirandela (so luckily a good 35 kilometres away).

The grapes didn't look too good, especially in the Douro Superior lots of bunches were completely shriveled.