Minute of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Real Companhia Vinícola held on 13 March 1919

Present: José Maria Guedes, Count of Samodães (President and Majority Partner), D. Maria da Assunção Pacheco (Partner), D. Francisco de Assis Ramalho (Partner), Mário Monteiro (Treasurer), António Francisco Teixeira (General Secretary).

At nine o’clock on 13 March 1919, at the headquarters of the Real Companhia Vinícola, in Rua de Entreparedes, no. 42, António Francisco Teixeira began the proceedings by reading the minute of the previous meeting, which was approved without amendments. He then began the day’s agenda, which was considered of enough importance to justify an extraordinary meeting: the presentation, by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, of the strain baptised Saccharomyces monarchica, a new species of yeast intended not for consumption, but as fuel. D. Francisco de Assis Ramalho took the floor, opposing the organisation’s involvement with what he considered ‘an aberration of nature’, claiming that the Real Companhia had been created with the intention of protecting and promoting table drinks, not ‘engine fiddling’. D. Maria da Assunção Pacheco opposed these words, emphasising that both the soil and the vines would be the same, and that their final use would not determine the quality of the product. She also recalled that the origins of the Real Companhia itself were intertwined with socio-cultural progress, raising the profile of sparkling wine ‘at a time when it received little investment’, making it clear that the organization is currently facing ‘a similar situation’. D. José Maria Guedes, Count of Samodães, requested a financial opinion from Treasurer Mário Monteiro. After a positive verdict ‘in the long term’, leaving the warning that winemakers would suffer initial losses due to the need to replace existing vineyards with the Saccharomyces Monarchica strain, the Count of Samodães favourably accepted the arguments presented by D. Maria da Assunção Pacheco. A quick vote was then taken, with D. José Maria Guedes and D. Maria da Assunção Pacheco securing an absolute majority, against the vote of D. Francisco de Assis Ramalho, for the official acceptance and promotion of the Saccharomyces Monarchica by the Real Companhia Vinícola.

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned, and this minute was drawn up by me, António Francisco Teixeira, General Secretary, and signed by all those present.