The complexity of Port's "beneficio" system revisited.
Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:10 pm
For any of you that know me well, realize that this is perhaps my favorite topic about Port wine ... besides drinking it ... and instead of bringing back (from past discussions) I thought it would be fun to start a new one. Those of you who have joined me on a Port Harvest Tour, know that this discussion comes up at least once or twice during the tour, depending on who we are visiting. It is a little known story, that has great consequences to our drinking pleasure, as well as the lives of the Douro's Port producers and the grape growers and Gaia's Port shippers.
Some books on Port wine shy away from this topic altogether. Some do include a few paragraphs or even a page or two. In fact, the articles and books I've read are nearly always incorrect about the vineyard ratings. There is an abundance of misinformation regarding the grading of the terroir and other qualifiers that go into determining the overall grade of a vineyard, that then becomes what the IVDP (nowadays) uses to provide the owner with their Port production quota for that specific year (and an overall Port production quota is given for the entire Douro!). This beneficio only relates to Port, but that ultimately can also determine a Quinta owner's decision on how much of his overall production winds up as Douro wine, too. Often wrongly stated as grading from A-F, as in a vineyard that is "A-rated" gets to produce far more Port than a vineyard rated D-E-or-F. But in reality and in an article that I produced many moons ago, I was happy to dispel the myth that vineyards were only graded from A-F as you will find in just about every article or book that touches upon this topic. The truth is the ratings go from A - I.
In all honesty, that is just to clear up a point that always sticks in my craw when I see a journalist writing an article without any fact checking, (or the author of a book). I have to wonder if fake facts are just copied from book-to-book to article, believing the last source they've read. That is like believing a "news story" seen on FB and believeing it's real. Rant over!
There are many facets to beneficio. Likely, an entire chapter of a book could go into great detail about the decisions and ramification of how beneficio affects the lives of the Duriense. The grape farmer who has no other source of income, lives and dies by the size of the beneficio. Granted, that is a gross exaggeration, but it does come into play if his family will have more meat to eat during the lean months, while waiting for the next bounty (pay day) to come in during the harvest time that might still be months away. Therefore, an entire region which has no other industry outside of tourism, and oeno-tourism in the Douro has only been a thing for the past 20 years of the nearly 400 years that "Port" has been produced ... is just one of many dynamics.
As you will read in the newsletter that will be in your hands by the beginning of this weekend, the 2011 harvest had a miniscule beneficio and on top of that, the yields in the vineyards were considerably lower than previous years. That is why it was not easy to find bottles of 2011 Dow's Vintage Port. I am vastly simplifying things when making an example of one VP, but you get the point.
For those of you who are scratching your head and wondering, why Roy is blathering on about this beneficio stuff, I will provide someone else's writing, a brilliant article, 100% factually accurate and providing the best and simplest explanation I have ever seen in writing.
Feel free to comment here, ask questions or just follow along for those that do care to discuss this further. So that I don't have to be critical of other writer's who were confused on the facts, I have passed this along to those who could use the truth according to Oscar Quevedo ... many, many times:
http://quevedoportwine.com/how-the-port ... tem-works/
Some books on Port wine shy away from this topic altogether. Some do include a few paragraphs or even a page or two. In fact, the articles and books I've read are nearly always incorrect about the vineyard ratings. There is an abundance of misinformation regarding the grading of the terroir and other qualifiers that go into determining the overall grade of a vineyard, that then becomes what the IVDP (nowadays) uses to provide the owner with their Port production quota for that specific year (and an overall Port production quota is given for the entire Douro!). This beneficio only relates to Port, but that ultimately can also determine a Quinta owner's decision on how much of his overall production winds up as Douro wine, too. Often wrongly stated as grading from A-F, as in a vineyard that is "A-rated" gets to produce far more Port than a vineyard rated D-E-or-F. But in reality and in an article that I produced many moons ago, I was happy to dispel the myth that vineyards were only graded from A-F as you will find in just about every article or book that touches upon this topic. The truth is the ratings go from A - I.
In all honesty, that is just to clear up a point that always sticks in my craw when I see a journalist writing an article without any fact checking, (or the author of a book). I have to wonder if fake facts are just copied from book-to-book to article, believing the last source they've read. That is like believing a "news story" seen on FB and believeing it's real. Rant over!
There are many facets to beneficio. Likely, an entire chapter of a book could go into great detail about the decisions and ramification of how beneficio affects the lives of the Duriense. The grape farmer who has no other source of income, lives and dies by the size of the beneficio. Granted, that is a gross exaggeration, but it does come into play if his family will have more meat to eat during the lean months, while waiting for the next bounty (pay day) to come in during the harvest time that might still be months away. Therefore, an entire region which has no other industry outside of tourism, and oeno-tourism in the Douro has only been a thing for the past 20 years of the nearly 400 years that "Port" has been produced ... is just one of many dynamics.
As you will read in the newsletter that will be in your hands by the beginning of this weekend, the 2011 harvest had a miniscule beneficio and on top of that, the yields in the vineyards were considerably lower than previous years. That is why it was not easy to find bottles of 2011 Dow's Vintage Port. I am vastly simplifying things when making an example of one VP, but you get the point.
For those of you who are scratching your head and wondering, why Roy is blathering on about this beneficio stuff, I will provide someone else's writing, a brilliant article, 100% factually accurate and providing the best and simplest explanation I have ever seen in writing.
Feel free to comment here, ask questions or just follow along for those that do care to discuss this further. So that I don't have to be critical of other writer's who were confused on the facts, I have passed this along to those who could use the truth according to Oscar Quevedo ... many, many times:
http://quevedoportwine.com/how-the-port ... tem-works/