Why Tootsie Terroir Still Rules Port
Like taking the Series 7 if you really want to work in finance, jumping into thigh-deep granite treading tanks, known as a lagares, with a bunch of other people to trod grapes can be a rite of passage for the serious wine professional.
It’s impossible to know when the first grape was squished by a human foot in a bid to make better wine. (It is counterintuitive, after all, that a human being’s stinkiest appendage could make that fermented juice taste better.)
One of the first visual representations of grape stomping dates back to the 3rd century AD. Currently on view at Getty Villa, the A.D. 290-300 pastoral scene on an oval-shaped sarcophagus depicts a charming array of naked, delightfully plump cherubic figures harvesting grapes and stomping them in a large wine-pressing trough.
Things have changed—infants are largely viewed as generally unemployable in the wine industry—but the overall concept of foot treading remains. While most prevalent in Portugal, it’s also a common practice among a circle of hardcore terroirists scattered across the globe. But why? I wanted to find out.
In September, I headed to Quinta de Vargellas in the Douro Valley to experience the working Bacchanal for myself. I went into the experience filled with fizzy glee at the prospect of finally living out my favorite episode of “I Love Lucy” IRL. But that glee was underpinned with disquiet.
It’s the same sense of unease that pervades so many carefully curated doses of authenticity when traveling: like, sure you’re watching and even participating in this performance of a culture’s historical roots, but is there anything real and pure in this experience, or is it just another Instagram put-on without any relevance to the way these people live and work today?
Happy Feet Create Better Port
The story of Taylor Fladgate and one of the most prodigious producers of foot-trodden fermented beverages in the modern era begins in 1692, with the arrival of Englishman Job Bearsley in Portugal. The first estate in the Douro was not established until 1744, and Taylor Fladgate’s most prominent estate, Quinta de Vergalles, wasn’t cranking out the good stuff until the 1820s.
Today it is considered one of the wine world’s greatest sites, with a north-facing amphitheater of terraced vineyards overlooking the River Douro. The grapes grown here are reserved for complex, distinctive single-estate Vintage Ports, whose muscular tannins and robust berry-mocha-incensed elegance could not exist without the assistance of food treading, Taylor Fladgate’s managing director and chairman Adrian Bridge explained, as we threaded our way down from the pagoda-like estate he shares there with his wife, Natasha Bridge, who serves as a non-executive board member.
Natasha led the way down to the lagares in the dark, knowing each vine and stone on the estate intimately, having spent summers here as a child. (Taylor Fladgate is the namesake property of the Fladgate Partnership, a family run company managed by the eighth generation of the Yeatman family, with several other prominent wine and Port estates in Portugal under the umbrella, including that of Fonseca and Croft).
I reported for duty in the lagares around 11 p.m., arriving safely after the real work was finished. Up early, an experienced vineyard crew ranging in age from elder teens to the elderly hand-picks the Touriga Francesa, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, and other difficult-to-pronounce, spellcheck-defying indigenous grapes that comprise the heady blend of grapes on which the production of Port relies.
The grapes are often harvested and fermented together, with each one lending their own rainbow of floral, fruit, spice, and forest notes. Once picked, they are sorted and destemmed, then placed in the lagares.
At the end of the day, after fortifying themselves with hearty meals prepared by the crew of older women tasked with feeding the dozens of crew members who live here to work the harvest every year, a dozen or so continue their day in the lagares. It is by no means a requirement, Adrian explains, but they are there to earn money, and every hour counts.
“It’s also good fun,” he says, admitting that he and Natasha had joined the crew for a few hours several times that week at night, and would likely do the same until harvest was over.
The part we signed up for certainly was. The first portion of the treading, called the corte, or cut, is a more staid affair. The grapes at this point are completely uncrushed, and treaders work silently in prescribed one-two treading movements, shoulder to shoulder, led by one experienced worker. The methodical, meditative process lasts a few hours, and, when it is declared complete, the real party begins.
This stage—which also lasts around two hours—is dubbed “Liberdade” or liberty, and the transition is typically marked by the raucous singing of the “freedom” song. Treaders are given free range to stomp at random, with more experienced workers and the completists among us focusing on the corners to ensure that all of the grapes get equal crushing treatment.
“I hope you like doing the Chicken Dance,” Natasha shouted before jumping into the lagar to whoops of encouragement and commencing an impressive rendition of the famed dance.
The atmosphere was more junior high boogie than wild bacchanal, with a keyboardist providing the backdrop of vintage beats as we stomped our way to (we hoped) a good Vintage Port.
Natasha might enjoy the Chicken Dance, but, for Adrian, it’s all about the Conga Line.
“The Conga Line is the most conducive to grape treading,” he noted. “You really get all over the lagar, even in the corners, which can be rather neglected otherwise.”
He also favors the faux bullfight, led by a team member who has been joining the crew for more than a decade. It is as deliciously silly and strangely productive as it sounds: one person, “the bull,” targets one worker, who either goes to battle or runs. Everyone else inevitably gets involved in the scrum and, before you know it, 20 minutes of strenuous stomping, lightened with hilarity, have passed.
By the time you’re finished, you’re purple up well into the thigh region, feet and legs streaked with juice, pulp, and must. You’ll have purple toenails for weeks.
“But it’s totally worth it,” Natasha says. “And think of the antioxidants!”
Foot treading—the activity itself, and how Taylor Fladgate organizes it—is a bridge from the past to the future. Electricity didn’t come to the Douro until 1978. It would be cheaper and easier to convert the whole operation and mechanize it. Less labor, fatter margins. Capitalism!
“But it wouldn’t be quite the same,” Adrian says, noting that, while most Port estates abandoned traditional foot treading when electricity entered the picture, the practice adds an element of human terroir that a machine will never replicate. “The fermentation period for making Port is much shorter than it is for table wine. Foot treading maximizes the way you extract color, tannins, and flavors, and it does it without splitting the pips, which mechanized versions sometimes do.”
Taylor Fladgate’s premium Ports get foot service, all with the goal of keeping the pip, or grape seeds whole. When split, those seeds can lend a bitter element to the finished product.
Full Circle, Human Terroir
Taylor Fladgate relies on the same core of people who return to live, work, stomp, and play for a few weeks every year. In recognition of the impact they have on their most prized Ports, they invest in the community.
The Social Solidarity Association of the Villages of the Municipality of Mondim de Basto, from where most of the harvest workers come, receives funding for projects from Taylor Fladgate every year. (The relationship between Taylor Fladgate and Mondim de Basto is not formalized, but has been in place for decades). One recent donation allowed the Association to acquire an industrial boiling pan to cook meals that are distributed in the community every day, and another funded a van that transports people who have reduced mobility and special needs around town.
The creation and culture of Port is holistic. My participation in a midnight foot tread in the Douro is, to be sure, not going to change the quality of this year’s vintage (and yes, I will be eagerly anticipating the 2024). But it was absolutely revelatory.
There’s the human-free terroir that grows the grapes—we all know and love that soil, that aspect, that elevation, this year’s precise blend of weather patterns… But the human element of terroir, the kind that happens in the lagar, is harder to define, and impossible to control. Can you taste the joy of happy feet in a glass of Port? It may not come out in a tasting note the same way it went in, but the consistently sky-high scores Taylor Fladgate Ports receive tell the story in their own way.
Machines make great Port. But feet kick it up a notch.