Christie’s Port & Douro wines
An independent family company producing beautiful wines of Porto and Douro!
Christie’s Wines is a family-owned company producing Port wines and still wines from the Douro. It includes the houses of Vasconcellos, Butler Nephew and the range of still wines of the domain Quinta Dona Mafalda.
Owned by Stephen Christie, dynamic French “entrepreneur”, it is today one of the pretty treasures of the Douro. Let’s go together to meet him.
Why did you become a wine producer? What is your background?
Stephen Christie: In fact quite by chance since when I started my active life I was not at all in the Port wine line. After obtaining my Bac in France, I worked in an audit firm in Paris. At the time it was still possible without going through a big school, I was junior. Now it’s over, to enter the audit firms it takes a well referenced business school !!. So I did 5 years of auditing in a British company in Paris and I then came to Portugal in 1979, on June 13th. to audit a company, a subsidiary of Gonzales Byass, which was very very strong in Sherry. The branch in Oporto, producing Port wine, was bankrupt and the owners wanted to separate themselves of that branch. The business of the company was going rather badly because in fact there was no complementarity between the Spanish Sherry and the Port market. One day the President told me, laughing, “Why do you not take it over ?” He made me a proposal that I could not refuse. He asked me for a very little amount to pay over 5 years… As crazy as it may seem, I accepted and so finally I stayed here in Portugal. I was 23 years old, I was full of unconsciousness, I did not have money, I did not speak Portuguese, did not know the sector, I was without experience and I think I had never tasted Port! It was necessary to negotiate with bank’s lines of credit for the grape harvests. It was a real big challenge but I liked it a lot! I remember at the time the other players in the trade having fun making bets between them on how long I would hold on, and how long it would take me to go bankrupt !
Can you define in 3 or 4 words what port represents for you?
S.C.: I would say: ‘power’, ‘complementarity’ and ‘wine’. We very often forget that Port is not only Port but it is above all “wine”. Port is the idea of age, wisdom, we have no exuberance in port. It is to me this strength that is a product that we can ‘marry / pair’ with almost everything and that will come out without crushing the dish. All one has to do is to choose the wright type of port.
This is not a delicate product, Port is not afraid of oxygen. When you open a bottle of still wine you must drink it on that day or the next day but no later. You can use all types of caps or accessories to remove air but it will not change much. At my house I can leave a bottle of Port open for a month and a half or 2 months and it will not change. There is so much power in Port. Yes, the more we wait the more we will lose aromas but there is such aromatic power in Port that even if we lose a little bit it is not very serious. I obviously am talking of old tawny Ports leaving aside on this affirmation Vintage Ports (Ruby styles) which should be savored quickly to keep all the freshness and all what I call the “young Ports”.
What is the signature of Christies wines?
S.C.: I have a signature that is different from what we can find on the market, especially for Port. Because I am different, it is very important in regards to Port and we will talk later about wines. When you do a vertical tasting of Tawny Port, there is generally a certain harmony because for many they are very large productions. What is very interesting is that when you start working on small quantities of old Ports produced from a large panel of Port in stock, there you can work better, select better and therefore have more access to quality. That’s what we do, it’s a luxury we can afford as our youngest Port is a Reserve with 6/7 years old.
”Quality” means that I do not need to look for complementary products, oenological or other so that my port can really be appreciated. In Port wine there is a constant attention that one has to have that does not exist in the still wine. The still wine must be touched as little as possible. It must be quiet, no air no oxygen and it must be bottled very quickly. Port is totally different. It is a wine that lives, which needs to be regularly worked in the right way, yes we must “wake it up” a bit sometimes, it must be changed from a barrel to another etc. In a 10 years old red (I also produce a ten year old white) I try to preserve the red fruits, not be in the over-presence of dried fruits, and wood… It is necessary that a 10 years old remains a 10 years old and not a 20 year old!
How do you spread the visibility of these two brands (Vasconcellos and Butler Nephew)?
S.C.: Vasconcellos is a brand that is sold 99% here in Portugal, dedicated to wine tourism. We have approximately 30,000 people who come to visit our Gaia cellars every year. And so we have, to fully answer your question, on one side Vasconcellos and on the other Butler Nephew. The latter is our reference brand on export markets and totally absent in Portugal.
Do you have specific projects?
S.C.: Yes the main current project is to develop sales in the United States. I have good leads that are in progress. It’s a very big market for entry-level port (mainly because unfortunately United states produces an entrance level “port style wine”) but I do not want to compete with this kind of product. I consider it useless to offer an entry-level to try to sell mid-range and high-end Port. I do not want to touch my quality! I have enough stock to allow me to do that. I have a stock equivalent of 10 years sales. This is well above the average in the trade which is more or less 3 years stock. It’s a luxury, it allows me now to have good quality port for a 6 years old reserve , 10 years White and tawny , 20 years, 30 years and over 40 years ( even if I produced recently a very nice “crusted” Ruby Port). I think that there is a clientele that likes aged tawnies Ports. Port is a wine and it is mainly a dessert wine.