History
Viticulture in Bucelas, located just north of Lisbon, has likely existed since Roman times. Historically a white wine, during the Elizabethan age it was popular among the English as a fortified wine with wine historians believing that the wine was likely the same "Charneco" wine mentioned by William Shakespeare in the play Henry VI, Part 2 with Charneco being a local village in the Bucelas region. Eventually Bucelas was made as a non-fortified white wines, with British interests in the wine being revived during the Victorian age following the Peninsular War. During his time in Portugal, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington discovered the wine and imported large quantities back to his estate in the United Kingdom. With Wellington's favor, soon Bucelas was a fashionable wine on the London wine market where it was known as "Portuguese Hock".
During the 20th century, urban sprawl and development contributed to the decline of viticulture and winemaking in the region. By the early 1980s, all the vineyard lands in Bucelas was owned by a single wine estate with a poor reputation for quality. Towards the turn of the century, following a wave of enthusiasm and revival for Portuguese's indigenous grape varieties, new winemakers started to set up operation in the area to produce wines from the local grapes.
Read more about this topic: Bucelas DOC
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)