Évora, Portugal, Aug. 29, 2025 (Lusa) - The Alentejo is "astonished" and "in shock" at the measure approved by the government to award Douro winegrowers 50 cents per kilo of grapes delivered for distillation, the president of the Alentejo Regional Wine Commission said on Friday.
"The Alentejo is stunned by this decision, not only because we are against the use of public money to burn wines without the promotion component," but also "because we cannot accept that there is a situation of discrimination in relation to the rest of the country," argued the president of the Alentejo Regional Wine Commission (CVRA), Luís Sequeira.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, he was reacting to the cabinet's approval of the action plan for the Douro on Thursday.
The plan provides support of 50 cents per kilo of grapes delivered for distillation. It aims to prevent a loss of income for winegrowers, according to Agriculture Minister José Manuel Fernandes, at a press conference.
'The Douro has a specificity that we must take into account, it's a UNESCO heritage site and that's why we've approved a cabinet resolution that has immediate effect concerning support of 50 cents per kilo [grape] for all winegrowers and with the aim of distillation,' he said.
Although, "of course", on behalf of the Alentejo, he expressed "total solidarity" with the Douro and "with the difficult situation" that the region's winegrowers are experiencing, Luís Sequeira insisted that he doesn't understand the decision taken in the cabinet meeting and that it means a change in the government's position.
"What has shocked us, and it shocks us deeply, is the fact that the government has changed a position that, incidentally, had the full support of the Alentejo, namely to avoid the use of public money for distillation. It's been our position for a long time that one of the solutions for the wine sector is to focus more on promotion," he said.
And for this reason, "the use of public money should be channelled for this purpose and not for burning wine", an idea that CVRA felt was shared by minister José Manuel Fernandes himself.
"The minister himself, relatively recently, quite rightly said that we can't allow the government to pay 45 cents for wines that may have been bought cheaper. In fact, the minister even indicated a specific value, and we agreed with this situation," he emphasised.
However, to the region's “surprise and shock”, the cabinet issued a measure “in which the State Budget will pay the full €15 million for the purpose of burning the wines”.
"We are totally opposed to this situation, above all because it confers a reality, in addition to the one we've already mentioned, of incomprehensible discrimination. There are complicated situations in the rest of the country too, which naturally deserve attention from the Portuguese government," he emphasised.
For the CVRA president, who said he had already requested an urgent meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Portugal cannot "have a situation in which the Government of the Portuguese Republic believes that the only region that should be supported is the Douro".
This is "an absolutely unacceptable process" and CVRA wants to present the minister with "its perspective on the current situation in the wine sector" and, at the same time, "find out what the government's position is concerning the other regions", he insisted.
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