Em busca do(s) mapa(s) perdido(s): coalescência e fragmentação das demarcações pombalinas na definição territorial da região demarcada do Douro (1757-1761)

Abstract

Regardless of their size, the regional viticultural demarcations had a given territoriality, whether synchronously poured into maps or not, which implied a concrete spatiality, identifiable by precise contours that delimited a more or less homogeneous space, which consisted of a territorial continuity, normally without enclaves, there is no fragmentation and, therefore, coalescence is the rule. The territorial outline obeyed the individualization of sufficiently distinct and unrepeatable organoleptic characteristics, as they result, in good measure, either from a given "terroir" or from relatively similar pedo-climatic conditions, factors that, added to the dominant grape varieties used, conferred wine the "typicality" easily recognizable by consumers. In addition, each regional demarcation involved a legal regulatory framework, with a greater or lesser legal thickness.Although they can be explained in other ways, the demarcations are often delimited cartographically. In the case of the eighteenth-century "pombalinas" demarcations, despite the "Mappa do Rio Douro" or "Mapa das terras vizinhas ao rio Douro" ("Map of the lands neighboring the Douro river"), the commented transcript of the current texts, related to the demarcations of 1757, 1758 and 1761, published by the Engineer-Agronomist Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca, in the work "The Pombaline Demarcations in the Douro Wine Region", in 1949, mentions the possible existence of one (or several) map(s). Between demarcations and cartography, we analyze the alternative conjectural maps that Álvaro Moreira da Fonseca published, which, despite some patented weaknesses, should be recognized as an important cartographic contribution to the theme of Pombaline demarcations, which was an essential objective explained by that engineer.