The long wooden troughs, or lagares, having been partially filled with grapes, a couple of swarthy bare-legged fellows in striped shirts, and leathern shoes studded with broad-headed nails, jump into each lagar and, after spreading out the bunches, commence footing it ankle-deep among the crushed fruit, while the juice pours forth through spouts into casks placed to receive it. The men dance with a rapid swaying movement which is held to express the juice from the grapes in a more satisfactory manner than can be accomplished by any known mechanical appliance.
After being trodden, the grapes are finally subjected to the action of a screw, which is fixed over the centre of each lagar. The pile of half-crushed fruit is enclosed in a band of esparto-matting, and the handles of the screw being turned, a wooden slab descends, and the remaining juice pours forth through the interstices of the esparto, and is collected in the butts beneath. These casks, as filled, are hoisted upon bullock-carts, and sent jolting away to the Jerez bodegas.
The vindimia, or vintage, is always an animated scene, whether on the gently undulating vine lands of Andalucia, or in Portugal, on the steep terraced slopes of the mountains which shut in the wild Alto Douro. Afar across those Lusitanian glens resound the musical chant and characteristic sing-song ditties of the Gallegan peasantry—like cicadas, they sing and answer each other from hill to hill the livelong day, the happy, despised, bond-slaves of the Peninsula, who, at vintage-time, flock from their rude barren province of Galicia to revel in abundance in the Alto Douro on a couple of testoons, say, tenpence a day, supplemented by an allowance of oil, a few salted sardines, rice, and stock-fish, and of broa, or maize-bread, and the accommodation of mother-earth to sleep upon, with a roof overhead through which the star-light and the silvery rays of the harvest moon gleam in at a hundred chinks and crevices. A happy lot, these Gallegans, happy in the possession of content, happier far than their more impulsive brethren, the socialistic peasants of Andalucia, of whom we have just spoken.
Portugal.—The Vintage in the Alto Douro.
Fain would we pause here for a few moments among those rugged hills of the Douro, amidst which, long ago, we first witnessed the spectacle of vindimia—a sight which has left a deep and pleasing impression. Everywhere on the terraced slopes are scattered groups of vintagers, whose not unmusical voices fill the still air. Heavy bullock-carts go creaking discordantly up and down the dry boulder-strewn gullies which serve as roads; droves of nimble little donkeys, with pig-skins full of wine strapped across their backs, or bringing bread for the people employed in the vineyards, wend their way along zig-zag bridle-paths; farmers with wine-samples and pedlars with their packs on mules, equipped with jingling bells, jog leisurely along the mountain roads; groups of buxom women, with bright-coloured kerchiefs tied over unkempt tresses, and bare brown legs, dexterously detach the bunches and fill them into baskets, the men meanwhile lazily smoking under the shade of some olive-tree till their burdens are ready. Along the mountain-paths file strings of sturdy Gallegans,[62] each bearing upon his shoulders a huge basket (jigo), crammed with grapes. The jigo weighs nearly a hundredweight, and the shoulders of the bearer are protected by a woolly sheep-skin. These burdens they bear to the lagares, where, when the great stone trough is filled, a gang of men step in and commence a sort of devil's dance, treading out the rich juice, which, after many hours' fermentation, pours in purple streams to the tonels below.
Within the sombre shade of the lagares that strange dance proceeds, at first briskly, amid laughter and song, to the squeaking notes of fiddle and guitar, the rattle of drum, and the chaff of the women who gather round the open verandas; but as the hours roll by and the air grows heavy with the exhalations of fermenting "must," the work begins to tell, and the treaders, all bespattered with purple juice, move slowly and listlessly. In vain the fiddle strikes up anew, the fife squeaks, the guitar tinkles, and overseers upbraid. After some eighteen hours of this tread-mill exercise in an atmosphere charged with soporific influences, music has lost its charm, and authority its terror. The men, by this time almost dead-beat, languidly raise first one purple leg and then the other, working on far into the watches of the night. Thus has wine been made since before Homeric times.
The wine district of the Alto Douro, whence comes our port wine, is a singular region, extending some thirty miles along either bank of the river, but chiefly on the north side, in the province of Traz-os-Montes, and having a varying width of five to ten miles. The whole paiz vinhateiro consists of grey and arid-looking mountain-sides, divided by deep gullies and ravines, and all so steep that their soil of friable mica-schist, more like bits of broken slate than fertile earth, can only be cultivated by means of terraces roughly built up, tier above tier. Mountain after mountain has its sides thus scored with terraced lines like Cyclopean staircases, and on particular slopes as many as 150 may be counted rising one above another, the effect of which is most peculiar. Here and there a gleaming white casa, with its grove of orange and cypress-trees; or a water-mill, shaded by oaks and chestnuts, breaks the monotony of the landscape. Below, the yellow Douro courses swiftly, bearing picturesque boats, high-prowed and long-hulled, impelled by a white cloud of sail, and steered by a huge oar worked from a pivot in the stern-post, while far above the zone of vineyards rise mountain peaks in jagged outline.
Grapes are growing by the wayside, hanging from every crag or tree to which a vine can attach its tendrils, and, perhaps most picturesque of all, from the ramadas or trellises. These ramadas roof in the courtyard of cottage or farm, and even span the village street. As one rides through the hamlets which nestle in the valleys of the Douro, the heavy purple clusters, six or eight pounds in weight, hang temptingly just overhead—temptingly to the stranger to raise his parched lips and snatch a mouthful of the juicy spheres. Partridges, too, appreciate the luxury of a grape-feast, and in the evening, at this season (September and October), their call-note is ubiquitous. But it is terrible work to follow them amidst the tangled vines and crumbling terraces under the fierce afternoon sun; and a better chance of sport will be found at mid-day on the heather-clad ridges above. Thither, after their morning feed, they retire to enjoy a siesta, and with the aid of a good dog will afford excellent sport till towards 4 P.M., when they return to the lower grounds. There is a cooler breeze on these heights, and a superb panorama of the wildest region of Lusitania, bounded by the Serras do Gerez and Marão and the highlands of Traz-os-Montes. There handsome Swallowtails (Papilio machæon) curvette around on powerful wing, and among the shaggy heather, rocks, and rough straggling woods, one may chance upon a slumbering wolf, the bête noir in the winter of the Douro goatherd; though nothing ever fell in the writer's way more formidable than a black fox, for the destruction of which was awarded the premium fixed by law—300 reis, fifteen pence! It is a land of insects, from the singular mantis and merry grasshoppers of many hues, to the scorpion, and centipedes of enormous size. As evening falls the air rings—the earth seems to vibrate—with the rattle of mole-crickets and cicadas, and the gentle tinkle of the tree-frog: glowworms sparkle on each dark slope, and by the feeble light of fire-flies we have to pick a devious way along miles of broken rock and hanging thicket, by what in Portugal passes for a bridle-path.
Twenty years ago the Alto Douro could only be reached on horseback, crossing the Serra do Marão by the Pass of Quintella. A pleasant ride it was, nevertheless, in September, by Cazaes, traversing the valley of the Tamega to Amarante, famed for its peaches and "vinho verde" (green wine, so rough as to bring tears to one's eyes); thence up the slopes of the Marão, and through the granite defiles of Quintella, which look down upon Pezo da Regoa and the valley of the Corgo. It was here—in the Baixo Corgo—that the port wines of three generations ago were vintaged; now all the most valued growths come from further east, beyond the Corgo (Cima Corgo).