Dear <<First Name>>,
Portugal is Europe’s westernmost country and comprises the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. It is an historic wine producing country that was exporting its wines to Rome in the days of the Roman Empire. The oldest diplomatic treaty in the world still in force, the Treaty of Windsor, was signed between Portugal and England in 1386 and Portugal’s wine trade with England was further cemented in 1703 with the signing of the Methuen Treaty which gave Portugal preferential export rights. Portugal was one of the first countries in the world to give wine-growing regions exact geographical boundaries and to classify their vineyards: its first demarcated wine regions were Porto and Douro in 1756. Portugal has a great diversity of soils and climates for such a small country, and is often described as the country with the greatest variety of grapes – there are supposed to be hundreds of them – many of them unpronounceable! International varieties also feature and as Portuguese wine is usually a blend, labelling is often simplified by naming the wines as either Branco or Tinto – White or Red. However, the classification of Portuguese wines follows the European system.
Portugal is the world’s most important source of cork but, apart from this, the country’s best known exports are its fortified wines - Port and Madeira
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