The Portuguese Government announced support of 12 million euros for winegrowers in the Douro region who cannot sell their production this campaign. The announcement was made by the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers. This support represents a one-off solution for this year, different from the measures of previous years, which focused on distillation support.
The minister explained that the Douro was chosen because of its unique characteristics that make it very difficult to substitute with another crop, creating special difficulties for producers in the region. For the future, the Government has already decided that the solution should be structural, through the creation of a permanent fund to manage fluctuations and difficulties in the Douro wine market.
After a year in which production in the Douro decreased to 178,000 pipes of wine, the sales problems worsened again. Winegrowers complain that they have no buyers, that they can only sell grapes from the benefit destined for Port wine, and that they receive very low prices for the grapes. The interprofessional council of the Douro and Porto Institute approved a benefit of 76,000 pipes for this harvest, 1,000 more than the previous year, but operators warn of high stocks and falling sales.
On Wednesday, a symbolic protest took place where grapes were dumped in the street in front of the headquarters of the Douro and Porto Wine Institute in Peso da Régua, to raise awareness about the crisis affecting small and medium-sized Douro producers.
