Port ProDuCers anD shiPPers 219Graham*
Symington Family Estates
travessa Barão de Forrester, 86, apartado 26, 4431-901 Vila nova de Gaia
tel. (351) 223 776 300
http://www.symington.com
Graham is indisputably one of the great names of Port. The company is of Scottish origin
and began as a Glasgow-based textile concern. With an office in Oporto, the firm entered
the wine trade by accident in 1820 after accepting twenty-seven pipes of Port in lieu of
a bad debt. The Graham family name has a strong presence in Oporto, linked to Port,
construction and textiles. There is even an area of the city at the western end of the Avenida
da Boavista known as ‘Graham’. W. & J. Graham continued to belong to the family until
1970 when, like so many others, the business fell on hard times and was sold. It was bought
by the Symington family who also own Cockburn, Dow and Warre.
Graham Ports are closely identified with Quinta dos Malvedos overlooking the Douro
near Tua, which was bought for the company in 1890. Following the Second World War,
the vineyard went into decline and the property was sold off, only to be repurchased in
a poor state in 1982. In the interim, much of Graham’s finest Port was sourced from
Quinta das Lages in the Rio Torto and this continues to be an important component in
the vintage lote. Malvedos was completely replanted and a new winery has been built on
the site, equipped with robotic lagares. Over a third of Graham’s 2000, one of the best
wines of the vintage, was made by robotic lagar. Although the Malvedos name has been
used purely as a brand in the past, an SQVP is now bottled in good undeclared years
under the Malvedos label.
Graham Ports are generally richer, sweeter and rather more fleshy than wines from the
other houses belonging to the Symington family (3.8 degrees Baumé as opposed to 3.3
Baumé for Dow). The company boasts a phenomenally good range of wines. Six Grapes
is an upmarket reserve that always does well in comparative tastings. Graham’s powerful,
fruit-driven LBV is also consistently good; richer than most and invariably satisfying.
Fined before bottling, it counts among the best of the modern genre and has deservedly
become brand leader in the UK market. Graham’s ten- and twenty-year-old tawnies have
a sumptuous, mellow texture that make them all too easy to drink.
The house style is best illustrated by Graham’s exceptional vintage Ports, which are
consistently rich, plump and fleshy, yet backed by a rod of tannin, which is often concealed
behind the fruit. Among recent vintages, 2007, 2000, 1997 and 1994 are wines in the
classic mould, balancing intensely sweet, concentrated fruit with beguilingly firm, broad
tannins. Graham’s 1970, 1963 and 1945 are among the finest vintage Ports declared in
the twentieth century. It already looks as though 2000 will be among the finest vintage
Ports of the twenty first.