Port Is For Life: Symington Vintage & Tawny Ports

BY NEAL MARTIN |

“Port is for life, not just for Christmas.” True, though I am sure sales figures would confirm that more bottles of port, in all its multifarious forms - Vintage, Ruby, Tawny, Single Quinta, Colheita, White or Crusted - are ceremoniously passed to the left over the festive period than at any other time of the year. So it would be remiss of me not to offer Vinous readers an early Christmas present in the shape of a port-themed article (and no, I have not got the receipt if you don’t like it.)

Paul Symington, discussing post-retirement plans following his last official tasting as chairman of Symington Family Estates

Paul Symington, discussing post-retirement plans following his last official tasting as chairman of Symington Family Estates

This article follows a tasting of Symington Family Estate’s Vintage and Tawny Ports, held within the medieval walls of the Tower of London. Outside, herds of excitable schoolchildren were shepherded into crypts to gawp at the Crown Jewels by a very Essex-sounding Henry VIII, while inside, port lovers gathered in the New Armouries Hall to see an equally excitable Paul Symington undertake his final official tasting as chairman before handing over to his 49-year-old cousin, Charles Symington. I am not being facetious or disparaging when I describe Paul Symington as “excitable” - quite the opposite. That is just the way he is. Cut from the same pinstriped cloth as Adrian Bridge at Taylor Fladgate or Christian Seely at Quinta do Noval, he is of good English stock, yet thoroughly European. Symington is voluble and animated, his Received Pronunciation interspersed with the odd expletive grenade. His untrammelled passion and almost boyish enthusiasm have been extremely important in reinvigorating Symington’s brands: Dow, Graham’s, Warre’s, Quinta da Vesuvio and, since 2010, Cockburn’s, not to mention their dry Douro white and reds. Charles Symington’s career has focused more on the hands-on winemaking side than Paul’s. Born in Portugal and growing up there until age eleven, Charles honed his craft in regions such as Rioja and South Africa before returning to the Douro. He is more reticent compared to his cousin, his conversation more measured, and perhaps not a raconteur like the outgoing (in both meanings of that word) chairman, but up to the task of leading Symington forward.

One aspect of the business that I did not know is that all family board members run their own estates and are obliged to sell the fruit to Symington Family Estate at the same price as contracted farmers. For this reason, on more than one occasion during the tasting, Paul Symington stressed the idea of the Symingtons not as shippers but as growers. Apart from the family’s own holdings, some 969 grape growers are contracted, 43% of them tending less than half a hectare, with much of the fruit destined for their commercial labels and Ruby Ports that are so financially important. 

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“Port is for life, not just for Christmas.” True, though I am sure sales figures would confirm that more bottles of port, in all its multifarious forms - Vintage, Ruby, Tawny, Single Quinta, Colheita, White or Crusted - are ceremoniously passed to the left over the festive period than at any other time of the year. So it would be remiss of me not to offer Vinous readers an early Christmas present in the shape of a port-themed article.