For The Love Of Port

Bad news for the small growers in the Douro Valley: The beneficio for 2019 was decided by the interprofessional council of the IVDP to be 108,000 pipas, which is a reduction of 8,000 pipas when compared to last year's beneficio.
As the AEVP commented, this is due to the fact that the sales of Port Wine in 2018 were lower by 4%. They mentioned that the sales to the UK went down by 24% - which I nearly can't believe. Brexit related?
Well, let's hope for the growers that the price per pipa increases, to help them to maintain their already low revenue from growing the grapes.
Every one of us that travels from time to time to Portugal sees the incredible growth of tourism... many of these tourists enjoy a few glasses of Port during their trip... Now imagine how bad the Port Wine sales figures would be if this tourism-growth wouldn't have happened...
I think it's now our duty as FTLOP community to save the day and to drink even more Port than we did before... :)

Is there a trend after a major declaration to reduce? I haven't looked at the numbers so may be off on this, but it seems from memory there's often a drop after a major declaration is announced. Anyone have handy the Beneficio list for the past couple decades?

Christian Gollnick wrote:viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39749&p=130682&hili ... io#p130682

Would appear there is a reduction for a far shorter time, typically 2-3 years, between long stretches of increases or near-same quantities. Would be interesting to see that chart paired with a chart of total sales of Port for each year.

They mentioned that the sales to the UK went down by 24% - which I nearly can't believe. Brexit related?

It seems quite high as I've heard other alcohol producers/importers actually were importing more to stockpile a supply in case a hard Brexit caused delays in shipping. Perhaps the slide in value of the Pound may be an issue? Any UK folks want to chime in on what they may be seeing/experiencing?

Christian Gollnick wrote:viewtopic.php?f=1&t=39749&p=130682&hili ... io#p130682

Nice chart. I didn't do any statistical analysis, but looking at that, I see no correlation between declared years and the benficio.

Beneficio is unrelated to following generally declared years of Vintage Port. It has far more to do with overall sales of Port wine globally.

Another piece of incorrect speculation above is that prices of grapes are low or stagnant. 2018 was the first time in history that Douro grape growers were allowed to set their own prices for their grapes, without any regulation by the government. The Port trade paid a pretty price as growers did raise their pricing and likely will do the same this year, but to a lesser degree.

In the UK, the aforementioned drop in Port sales by 24%, which took place in 2018, was not vintage related as that year the first general declaration (of 2016, since 2013's sales of 2011 VP) took place. Overall 2018, saw a fairly good economy around the world. Why sales dropped so significantly may have been due to political turmoil, but otherwise it is somewhat hard to understand. There were producers that held back in their production of 2016 Vintage Ports that were released last year. I have heard some major companies mention they felt competitors did so for specific pricing reasons. I am not sure whether that is really the case or not. But the scarcity of high quality grapes was reduced and prices went up quite significantly on grapes in the Douro, used specifically for Port wine.