The fine Douro wine, favored by custom fees more auspicious than those imposed on French wine, gained a growing popularity in the English market, detaining preference over some other wines early in the 18th century. The business flourished to such an extent that very quickly the first fraud appeared such as adding sugar, elderberry and other less scrupulous recipes. The cases of fraud reached such a proportion that it was established the General Company of Agriculture of Vineyards of the Alto Douro, determining what would become the first demarcated region in the world. With the end of King Joseph reign and the removal of Marquis of Pombal as the Head of Government the Company lost some of its initial privileges while the country and the Douro region lived under the uncertainties of liberalism. The second half of the nineteenth century would end up marking the turning point of the Douro of Marquis of Pombal to the modern Douro. First with the powdery mildew, then with the phylloxera, many vineyards were reduced to “mortórios”, devastated small terraces.

Port Wine was hailed as the greatest ambassador of Portuguese wine, one of the greatest in the world. The viticulture revolution has been one of the highlights of the slow transformation of Port Wine, such as the renewal of wineries, visible in the serious investment in cold and in technological equipment such as robotic mills. Processes that led to a wine-making revolution in the conservative world of Port Wine.The strong pressure exerted by the major markets to have the wine ready earlier, in categories such as Vintage or Colheita (harvest in English), making them softer and more seductive from their youth is one of the great modern challenges of Port Wine.