O legado da Real Companhia Velha (Companhia Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro) ao Alto Douro e a Portugal : (1756-2006)

Abstract

The Royal Oporto Wine Company was created in 10 September 1756 in order to guarantee and promote the production and trading of Upper Douro’s wines, to break the competition made by other Portuguese wines of inferior quality, to limit the predominance and the control of this economic activity by the English and, obviously, to increase the State revenues from the commerce of Upper Douro’s wines, which came to be one of the greatest income sources for Portugal. The Company was a pioneer in what concerns to the demarcation and public regulation of the vineyard region of the Upper Douro and in the protection of the denomination of origin. Furthermore, a good part of the historical and symbolic justification for Porto to be the capital of the North can be found in the Company, due to its multiple activities it developed and the important legacy it left to the region, namely in the fields of public works, higher-education institutions and the socioeconomic valorization of the Upper Douro and Porto, where the Company’s headquarters were located.