Joseph James Forrester
The Port Wine Advocate
Joseph James Forrester
Joseph James Forrester arrived in Porto in 1831 at the age of 22. A cartographer and wine lover, he spent years mapping the Douro and earned a reputation as a fine landscape and portrait painter. He is most remembered for his impassioned campaign against the adulteration of port wines by British traders. In the 1840´s the demand for port in England had declined leaving a surplus of port that was difficult to sell. Forrester claimed the reason for this decline was due to the large amounts of brandy, elderberry and sugar that British traders were adding to the wine
In his pamphlet “A Word or Two on Port Wine” Forrester claimed that the wine had become “..a nauseous, fiery compound of sweets, colours and alcohol; consequently Port at the tables of private gentlemen soon began to appear less frequently, and it is to be feared that it is gradually falling into total disuse”.
Forresters views won much praise from the Portuguese vine growers, in fact he won praise from all sectors of Portuguese society for his comments, from the vine growers to generals, even from the Cardinal Patriarch.
The British trading firms were outraged and Forrester spent much time responding to their personal vilifications and insults. Whilst there were many who agreed with his comments it was several years before the traders could wean themselves off the practice of adulterating their wines.
Forrester died in slightly mysterious circumstances in 1861. Boating down the rapids of the Douro river which he had spent so many years mapping, his boat capsized and he drowned. It´s often said that he was wearing a money belt stuffed with gold coins that weighed him down, preventing him from swimming to the surface.