1870 Port & Douro Vintage

The 1870 growing season unfolded as phylloxera was spreading rapidly across the Douro Valley, having arrived around 1868. The pest, a tiny aphid native to North America, inserted its feeding tubes into the roots of European vines, causing deformations that starved the plant of water and nutrients until it died. Vineyard managers across all three subregions were confronting declining yields and mounting vine mortality, though the worst collapse of production was still two to three years away. Growers faced urgent decisions about which fruit to harvest and how to secure supplies before further losses became inevitable.

• Phylloxera (Phylloxera vastatrix, named by French researcher Jules-Emile Planchon around 1868) was already causing severe stress to ungrafted rootstocks across the region
• The pest spread from affected American vines imported to Europe, against which native Vitis vinifera had no natural defense
• Vine decline was accelerating through the early 1870s; by 1872 some estates saw yields collapse from 70 pipes to just one in a single year
• Harvest decisions were made under urgent pressure, as growers recognised the need to secure whatever yield remained from still-productive parcels

The Douro Valley divides into three subregions: Baixo Corgo in the west around Peso da Regua, Cima Corgo in the centre around Pinhao, and Douro Superior stretching east to the Spanish border. Historical evidence indicates the Upper Douro was worse affected by phylloxera than the Lower Douro, since so many vines were destroyed there that most Port wine during the crisis period was sourced from the lower subregion instead. Cima Corgo, regarded as the heart of quality Port production and home to many of the great quintas, suffered severe losses, while the more remote Douro Superior faced both vine death and the additional challenge of isolation from markets.

• Baixo Corgo (around Peso da Regua): Milder, wetter climate; sources confirm the Lower Douro became the primary grape supply during the height of the phylloxera crisis as Upper Douro losses mounted
• Cima Corgo (around Pinhao): The heartland of quality Port production and home to most historic quintas; suffered significant phylloxera devastation through the 1870s and 1880s
• Douro Superior: The most remote eastern subregion, facing both vine death and transport difficulties that compounded economic hardship
• Sabrosa, in the Douro, is documented as the site of Portugal's initial phylloxera outbreak, from which the plague spread throughout the valley from 1871 onwards

The phylloxera crisis fundamentally restructured the Port industry by concentrating power in the hands of established merchant houses. As small farmers were unable to bear the costs of replanting and were forced to abandon their terraces, larger estates and commercial shippers stepped in to acquire properties. English and Scottish shippers including Taylor Fladgate, Graham's, Warre, and Roope began acquiring quinta properties to secure future grape supplies and invest in the replanting of vineyards with grafted stock. Taylor Fladgate's acquisition of the ruined Quinta de Vargellas in 1893 is among the best-documented examples of this consolidation, with the estate at that point producing only a handful of pipes annually.

• Taylor Fladgate: John Fladgate travelled to France in 1872 to study remedies being used there and published his findings in an open letter to Douro farmers, later being awarded the title of Baron of Roeda by the Portuguese Crown
• Taylor's acquired the phylloxera-devastated Quinta de Vargellas in 1893; Frank 'Smiler' Yeatman led its reconstruction, grafting new vines onto American rootstock
• Graham's, Warre, and Roope were among the English shippers who acquired quinta properties during the phylloxera era as vineyard infrastructure collapsed
• Abandoned terraces known as mortorios ('dead vineyards') still scar the hillsides of the Douro today, silent monuments to estates that were never replanted

Authenticated Port from the 1870 vintage is extraordinarily rare. Van Zellers and Co., whose family history in Port dates to the 18th century, produced a documented 1870 example that was later reviewed by Wine Enthusiast, described as aged in wood for more than a century with an old-gold character and a dry, evolved palate. Taylor Fladgate possesses one of the finest and most extensive reserves of old cask-aged Ports, including some rare wines from the 19th century that the company describes as concentrated to an almost magical essence by decades of ageing. Taylor's also released a limited-edition pre-phylloxera aged Tawny called Scion, drawn from its 19th-century reserves, which sold out quickly upon release.

• Van Zellers and Co. 1870 Rare Port Collection: A documented surviving example, bottled direct from barrel after more than a century in wood; produced in tiny quantities as part of a set with the 1860 and 1888
• Taylor Fladgate archives: The firm holds rare cask-aged 19th-century Ports, including the documented Single Harvest 1863 and the pre-phylloxera Scion release
• Any 1870 Port in private hands is now 156 years old; condition varies enormously depending on storage, and cork integrity is a primary concern
• Collector and historical value far exceeds organoleptic merit for most surviving bottles; provenance documentation is essential for any auction appearance

The 1870 vintage is a living artifact from a viticultural world that no longer exists in any replica. The ungrafted Vitis vinifera vines that produced this wine grew in Douro schist without the American rootstock now universal across virtually all of the world's wine regions. The phylloxera crisis of 1868 to the late 1890s did not merely reduce production; it reshaped the entire social and economic fabric of the Douro Valley. Small independent farmers lost their estates, merchant houses grew dominant, terracing methods changed, and a new generation of grafted vineyards replaced centuries of accumulated vine age. The recovery that gathered pace through the 1880s ultimately produced a modernised Port industry, but at the cost of the pre-phylloxera viticultural heritage that wines like the 1870 represent.

• The 1870 vintage is one of the last from ungrafted Vitis vinifera vines in the Douro; since the phylloxera era, virtually all Port is made from vines grafted onto American rootstock
• Notable exception: Quinta do Noval's Nacional plot, planted in 1925 on ungrafted rootstock, is the most famous surviving example of pre-phylloxera-style viticulture in the Douro
• The phylloxera recovery, which gathered pace in the 1880s, introduced new terracing methods: post-phylloxera terraces were broader, continuous, and planted at higher vine densities than the old stone-walled socalcos
• 1870 bottles represent a genuinely irreplaceable historical record; as Taylor's noted of its pre-phylloxera reserves, once the last drop has been consumed, one of the very few remaining voices of that era will be silenced forever