It can be said that the history of wine can be divided into 2 Eras: B.P (before phylloxera) and A.P. (after phylloxera).

What is Phylloxera ?

Phylloxera was a great plague that had influence in all of the world viticulture. It is characterized by small yellow mites that feed on the roots of the vines, sucking out their sap.

This plague arrived in Europe in the early 1860s through the import of North American grapevines, and at the time there were no regulations whatsoever. These vines were used to this mites and developed ways of resisting them, which didn’t happen with European vines.

When did the Phylloxera appear?

The 1st significant outbreak occurred in France, in the south of the Rhône region, in 1862 and the plague quickly spread to other parts of the country causing widespread devastation in the vineyards.

Portugal was the second European country to be invaded by phylloxera, initially in vineyards in the municipality of Sabrosa, in the Douro region. From 1871 on, phylloxera spread throughout the Douro, which was the first Portuguese wine region attacked by this plague and also the one that felt its effects the most.

What were the effects in the Douro wine region?

Phylloxera had an immediate effect and drastically reduced the cultivated areas leading to a reduction of more than a half of the wine supply on the market.

The fight against phylloxera was difficult and costly, and the most affected were the small producers, who could not bear the costs and were forced to abandon vine growing. Some properties in the Alto Douro Vinhateiro stopped cultivating vines and abandoned the terraces where it was planted.

These terraces that were left abandoned (some with olive trees or almond trees) can still be seen today and are called “mortórios”.

The solution that was most effective was the grafting of the European vine with the American vine, which was resistant to the plague. They had to replant new vines creating a new type of vine. Today the original “prephylloxera” vines are very rare.

The expression “deu-lhe a filoxera”– loosely, “he/she/it has phylloxera” is still used today in Portugal, in a figurative sense, to say that a certain person has fainted or that a device malfunctioned.

With us, you can learn more about this and other stories told in person in the oldest demarcated wine region of the world.