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Portuguese wine

wine of Portugal

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ1754670 ↗
Source-derived summary

Portuguese wine was mostly introduced by the Romans and other ancient Mediterranean peoples who traded with local coastal populations, mainly in the South. In pre-Roman Gallaecia-Lusitania times, the native peoples only drank beer and were unfamiliar with wine production. Portugal started to export its wines to Rome during the Roman Empire. Modern exports developed with trade to England after the Methuen Treaty in 1703. From this commerce a wide variety of wines started to be grown in Portugal. In 1758, one of the first wine-producing regions of the world, the Região Demarcada do Douro was created under the orientation of Marquis of Pombal, in the Douro Valley. Portugal has two wine-producing regions protected by UNESCO as World Heritage: the Douro Valley Wine Region (Douro Vinhateiro) and Pico Island Wine Region (Ilha do Pico Vinhateira). Portugal has a big variety of local kinds, producing a very wide variety of different wines with distinctive personality.

History

In southern Iberian Peninsula, some archeological finds attest that the consumption of wine occurred around the 7th to the 6th century B.C. and production started in the 5th to the 4th century B.C. Romans did much to expand and promote viticulture in their settlements in the province of Lusitania, most especially Portuguese Estremadura and the south of Portugal. In Northern Portugal, and according to the current knowledge, wine-making started with Roman rule.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Portuguese wine” as wine of Portugal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Portuguese, wine and Portugal.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1703, 1758—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Portuguese, wine and Portugal providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Portuguese wine”, the useful work is to connect “wine of Portugal” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1754670. The Library of Congress control number is sh2010118615. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1703 and 1758.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Portuguese wine”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Portuguese wine primary sources, Portuguese wine archive and Portuguese research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Portuguese wine”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Portuguese wine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.