Port Master Class with Paul Symington, CEO Symington Family Estates: Decanter Great Port Wine Weekend

I will use the Douro soil discussion from my previous post as a springboard to launch me back to Portugal and the events surrounding Decanter's Great Port Wine Weekend.  It has been awhile.  On Friday morning we were scheduled to tour and taste at both the Taylor's and Graham's Port Lodges.  The tasting at Graham's was led by Paul Symington, CEO of Symington Family Estates, and I report on that event in this post.

The Symingtons have been involved in the Port business through their grandmother's line since 1652 and in Port production since 1882.  The family is the largest vineyard owner in the Douro with 947 hectares under vine in 27 separate estates.  The family has direct ownership of five Port Houses (Graham's, Cockburn's, Dow's Warre's, and Smith Woodhouse) and the fabled Quinta do Vesuvio.  The family is currently responsible for 30% of the world's production of Premium Port.

Source: warres.com

After completing the tour of the Graham's Lodge, we were led upstairs to a light, airy room with a long table  running down the center.  Ten glasses, each with a tasting portion of wine, stood at each seating position.

According to the sheet lying beside the glasses, we would be tasting: Graham's Six Grapes, Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 2006, Graham's 10 Year Old Tawny, Graham's 20 Year Old Tawny, Graham's Crusted 2004, Graham's Quinta dos Malvedos 1999, Graham's 2007 Vintage Port, Dow's 2007 Vintage Port, Warre's 2007 Vintage Port, and Warre's 2009 Vintage Port.  Based on the lineup, this was a Graham's tasting with the Dow's and Warre's 2007 Vintage Ports thrown in for comparison with the 2007 Graham's Vintage Port.  The Warre's 2009 Vintage Port was a limited-edition bottling which commemorated the liberation of Oporto in 1809.

Graham's, with its acquisition of Quinta dos Malvedos, was one of the first Port companies to invest in the Upper Douro.  Today Graham's is considered one of the top Port houses in the world. Its complement of estates, their sizes, and the distribution of varieties grown are shown in the figures below.

Source: W. and J. Graham's Port

The characteristics of the Douro region, in general, and the soil, in particular, have been described previously, as has been the viniculture as it relates to Quinta do Vesuvio.  The vinicultural processes for Graham's is similar to Quinta do Vesuvio except for the widespread use of mechanical treaders in lieu of foot-treading.  Graham's feels that mechanical treading allows better temperature control during the fermentation process and is more reliable in a time of diminishing availability of human resources.

The first wine tasted was the Graham's Six Grapes.  According to Graham's, this wine is sourced from Quinta dos Malvedos and Quinta das Lages, the source for Vintage Port in declared years.  These wines are bottled young in order to present a profile that is not dissimilar to a young Vintage Port.  This wine has been aged in wood.  Pepper on the nose.  This wine is smooth, elegant, balanced with great structure and acidity.

Next up was the Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 2006.  LBVs mature for an average of 5 years in seasoned oak casks prior to bottling.  The grapes for this particular wine is sourced mostly from Quinta dos Malvedos.  This wine has a rich, structured, perfumed nose accompanying elegance and restraint.  Good acidity, caramel, butterscotch and a nice clean finish.

Graham's Tawny Ports, according to Paul Symington, are made in an "old woody style" through being aged in 534-liter oak casks.  The wines are a blend of several years production and generally present with a light amber color.  The 10 Year Old Tawny was pale in color and had hints of almond, cinnamon, honey and butterscotch on the nose.  Unctous and rich on the palate with great acidity.  Delicate, clean finish.  The 20 Year Old Tawny had a green tinge on the nose along with walnut, almond, cinnamon, and vanilla.  Some oxidation.  Rich, syrupy, slight medicinal quality, buttered popcorn, and nuttiness on the palate.

According to Graham's, its Crusted Port is made from a selection of young ports from two to three harvests from Quinta dos Malvedas, Quinta das Lages, Vila Velha, and Vale de Malhadas.  The wines are blended, assigned to oak casks, and are then bottled and stored for a further three years of maturation prior to sale.  The Graham's Crusted 2004 had a deep dark nose of purple fruit and molasses along with butterscotch and almonds.  A lot of fruit and power on the palate.  Good acidity.  Bitter finish.

In declared years, the wines from the Malvedos vineyard serve as the backbone for the Vintage but in non-vintage years they serve as the basis for a single-vineyard vintage offering called Graham's Quinta dos Malvedos.  The Graham's Quinta dos Malvedos 1999 had an elegant, restrained nose with hints of cinnamon, vanilla, and spice.  On the palate it was rich and creamy with dark chocolate flavors.

The 2007 Vintage was widely hailed by all members of the Port fraternity.  Conditions were sunny but relatively cool and the resultant even and balanced ripening produced, according to 2007 Vintage Ports, "... wonderfully elegant wines, with superb vibrant fruit quality as well as the crisp acidity and firm tannins required for a long life in bottle."  The Graham's 2007 Vintage Port was elegant, with rich ripe fruit.  Clean taste with some drying on the finish.  The Dow's 2007 Vintage Port was edgy and full-bodied.  Dark fruit and good acidity.  Warre's 2007 Vintage Port was elegant with a spicy bite and good acidity.

The year 2009 was very interesting in the Douro.  Taylor Fladgate declared vintages for Taylor, Fonseca, and Croft but Symington refrained from doing so for any of its major houses with the exception of one.  In an email exchange with Adrian Bridge, Managing Partner of Taylor Fladgate, Paul Symington referenced his family's pedigree in the Port trade and the reputation of his company as being key reasons for only declaring a vintage when he has produced a truly exceptional wine.  The implication was that such was not the case for the 2009 vintage.  In that same communication he did mention that the company would be declaring a 500-case Warre 2009 Vintage in honor of John Warre, a Major in the Portuguese wing of Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese army that faced Napolean, who played a key role in the 1809 battle that liberated Oporto.  A portion of the proceeds from each case (₤48) would be donated to a fund for soldiers wounded in the war in Afghanistan.  The Warre's 2009 Vintage Port exhibited a perfumed nose and dark fruit and dark chocolate on the palate.

This was a special treat in that it was supposed to be a tasting but quickly became a master class.  Paul's wide-ranging knowledge of the history of the region, the Port trade, and his wines, coupled with his tasting capability, resulted in an exceptional experience for the Decanter readers.

Quinta do Vesuvio (Douro, Portugal): Terroir and Viticulture

So here we are at Quinta do Vesuvio, the jewel in the Symington Family Estates crown, and our home for the remainder of the weekend.  The Symington Family has been involved in port production in Portugal for over 350 years and today produces one-third of the world's fine ports under such iconic labels as Graham's, Cockburn's, Dow's, Warre's, Smith Woodhouse, and Quinta do Vesuvio.  In addition to port, the family produces Madeira and still (Douro DOC) wines.

The ride from the train station to our weekend home is a short 300 meters.  The vineyard stretches away in all its majesty up and out to our left and front.  The road from the train station merges into the road leading down from the vineyard to make its way under the train track.  A left turn brings us face to face with our home: the estate house.

The house is a white, three-storied, 19th-century structure that is separated from the river by a feeder road and with a longitudinal portion running east to west and a chapel attached to its western end.  It is endowed with 40 rooms and there is a large, open-air veranda running the length of the building which is memorable for the many special meals, aperitifs, and digestifs consumed therein by our team.  The building's size is hidden by the way in which it is presented to the viewer and its interior is quaintly furnished.  Bathrooms are ex-suite.

The region of which Quinta do Vesuvio is a part has been previously described.  The vast property, then known as Quinta das Fuguerias, was acquired by Antonio Bernardo Ferreira in 1823 and he immediately set about building a Douro showpiece.  Using up to 500 men at the peak, Ferreira completed a massive adega (winery) in four years and the repair of old terraces and development of new in 13 years.  At the completion of the effort Ferreira noted that the English of the day "... could not find another adega to match mine in the Douro."  The estate was passed on through marriage and widowhood to Dona Antonio Ferreira who continued to improve the Quinta and made it her base of operations.  The estate was converted to an olive estate after the phylloxera outbreak of the 1870s but was largely replanted to vine after the disease was brought under control.  The estate was acquired by the Symington family in 1989.

At dinner on Friday evening, Paul had promised us that we would be awakened at 6:00 am by the winery foreman dropping a gear as he made the turn by the house on his way to the adega.  So said, so done.  And it was loud in the piercing silence that is a part of this vast, underpopulated expanse.  So we tumbled out of bed, conducted our ablutions, and congregated on the veranda for a much-anticipated breakfast.

After breakfast we piled into vehicles driven by Paul and the viticulturist and drove up a steep, winding road which took us into the upper reaches of the estate.  It was awe-inspiring.  The view across the expanse of the estate and the estate across the river was breathtaking.  Then the vehicles stopped.  Paul jumped out, ducked under the vine wire and stepped out onto a narrow ledge (his wife drew her breath in sharply and refused to look further), and beckoned us to form a semi-circle around him.  He then began to tell us the story of Quinta do Vesuvio.

He reached down (oohs and aahs) and came back up with some rock fragments in his hand.  The soil, he explained, was schist, a metamorphic rock with a high mineral content, with some granite outcroppings.  As is the case for all soil above the Valeria gorge, the soil at Quinta do Vesuvio is alkaline (the soil below the gorge is acidic).  The specific vineyard in which we were congregated was called the Schoolhouse vineyard because a school for the vineyard workers had been located in this part of the estate.  The entire Quinta do Vesuvio estate is is 340 hectares, with 146 planted to vine, and is 3 kilometers from end to end.

The property is subjected to temperature extremes during the course of the year.  Winters are freezing cold and fog will sometimes come into the valley and block out sunlight for periods of up to two weeks.  Summers, on the other hand, are very hot with temperatures getting as high as 50 degrees C (122 degrees F).  Rainfall averages a low 400 mm per year.

The slopes are primarily north-facing, allowing the grapes to benefit from the luminosity of the sun without having to deal with the long, direct sunlight (in Douro heat) associated with south-facing slopes.  Elevation ranges from 180 meters at the waterline to 530 meters in the upper reaches of the estate.  Vines are trained single Guyot on hillside terraces with two rows of vines per terrace.  The Symingtons have been extremely agressive in their stewardship of the estate.  Between 1990 and 1991, they planted 61,500 vines and added 30 hectares (90,00 vines) of Touriga Nacional vineyards in pretty inhospitable terrain in 2003.  Terracing at Vesuvio is of the patamares (banked earthen walls) variety.

There are approximately 375,000 vines planted at Vesuvio: 33.8% Touriga Nacional; 19.6% Tinta Barroca; 18.5% Touriga Franca; 17.8% Tinta Roriz; 3% Tinto Amaral; 1.6% Sousao, .3% Tinta Cao; and 5% other.  The average age of the newest vines is 10 years while the older vines average 35 years.

Two treatments of fertilizers are conducted during the course of the year.  There is also spraying to prevent against odium and mildew.  "If you do not pay constant attention to your vines you can lose them," says Paul.

Grapes are hand harvested with first-level selection in the field.  Teams of pickers are brought in from far-away villages and are housed on the property for the duration of harvest.  Grapes are placed into bright blue containers which are stacked onto tractors and trucked down to the winery for immediate crushing.

My next post will discuss operations within the adega.

Review of Decanter's Great Port Wine Weekend

Decanter, the leading wine magazine in the UK, implemented a program last year to bring a select group of its readers to top-end Bordeaux estates in order to meet and interact with the winery managers.  The intent of the program was to increase the Decanter value proposition in the eyes of these readers.  This initial effort was extremely successful from the reader's point-of-view (see my review here) and, apparently, from Decanter's  also, because they opted to repeat the effort this year, this time calling it the Great Port Wine Weekend.  This year's event differed from last year's in that it: was held in Portugal's Douro region rather than in France's Bordeaux; extended from Thursday to Sunday, rather than the two days covered by last year's program; was held during harvest so that we could observe and (participate in) the process; had a significant fortified wine (Port) component; had separate vitivinification and maturation aspects due to the structure of the Port trade.

Decanter leveraged its standing and relationships in the wine world to provide its readers with a four-day package that had the leading lights of the Port industry showcasing the leading Port locales in an encompassing, breathtaking fashion.  First, the level and intensity of executive access was unparalleled.  Every single activity in which we participated was led by some combination of Paul Symington, CEO,  Symington Family Estates, Nick Heath, Marketing Director, Taylor Fladgate and Yeatman, Adrian Bridge, CEO, Taylor Fladgate and Yeatman, Dominic Symington, Executive Director, Symington Family Estates, and Ana Margarida Morgado, PR Manager, Taylor Fladgate Yeatman.  For perspective, Symington Family Estates owns Graham's Port, Cockburn's, Dow's Port, Warre's Port, produces 30% of the world's premium Port, and is the largest vineyard owner in the Douro.

This "extreme access" began with an aperitif on the terrace and a private lunch in a private dining room (Both locales affording spectacular views of the the Douro and Porto) at the Yeatman Hotel, both hosted by its dapper Managing Director, Adrian Bridge.  The Decanter team was comprised of 11 readers, Sarah Kemp, Decanter Publishing Director, and Emma Franc, Decanter Events Manager and this was our kickoff meeting.  A glorious start to what would turn out to be a glorious weekend.  Adrian's welcome was very warm and he stayed with us for the duration, a practice to which we became accustomed over the four days.

This was only the beginning, however.  Both Paul Symington and Nick Heath took us on a tour of the Factory House and then hosted us for dinner in this fabulous historical structure.  And this level of executive attention and care continued until Dominic Symington deposited us into the buses that would take us from Graham's Quinto dos Malvedos to the airport at Porto on Sunday evening for our trip back to London.  And every day was chock full of activities.

Nick Heath, Marketing Director, Taylor Fladgate and Yeatman

Paul Symington, CEO, Symington Family Estates

Over the course of the four days we met the winemakers at Quinta do Vesuvio (a very important Symington Estate in the Douro) and Quinta dos Malvedos (a Graham's property), the viticulturist at Quinta do Vesuvio, and the head of Viticulture for all Symington properties.  The upshot of this level of access was a constant immersion in the history of the region and its families, the viniviticulture of the Douro, maturation processes, soil, climate, the wines of the region, and the difficulty associated with farming here.

As one travels up the Douro River, whether by train or boat, one is struck by the beauty of the terraced vineyards on gently sloping hills which reach at once for the sky and the horizon.  Punctuating these vineyards are patches of scrubland, walnut and olive trees, and granite outcroppings.  The appreciation for the beauty of the landscape is tempered by a mental tip of the hat in recognition of the human effort that was required to transform this inhospitable environment into a setting wherein extreme agriculture could be practiced.  The river, placid as it is, has been known to rise up and break a rib or two of the unsuspecting water-skier.

Occurring as it did in the midst of harvest, this trip afforded us the opportunity to observe the winemaking process for the 2011 vintage.  Port is vinified in the upper reaches of the Douro and then shipped downriver for maturation the following spring.  We visited three estates and were able to observe hand-harvesting of the varietals, the transportation of the picked grapes down to the winery, treatment of the grapes prior to crushing, various manual and mechanical crushing methods, fortification of the must, and the temporary storage of the fortified wine in the winery.  We participated in a manual crush but also gained an appreciation for the long hours that vineyard workers put in during harvest.  They are up at the crack of dawn and are picking grapes from 7:00 am until about 4:00 pm and are in the winery stomping grapes (gently) from 7:00 pm until 11:00 pm.

Our accommodations over the four days were an experience in and of themselves and contrasted luxury-living in a port town versus living on a working farm where the nearest convenience store is 40 kilometers away (When you forget to pick up milk on the way home you are not going back.).  The Yeatman Hotel, our place of abode in Gaia, is a new luxury hotel with all of the amenities.  The estate house at Quinta de Vesuvio is two-story, multi-bedroom structure with an attached church and no room-service button but we all jumped at the chance to stay on a working estate during harvest.  And this is not your every day rural farmhouse. It exuded warmth and charm which, in combination with the famed Symington hospitality, made us feel right at home.

We did not want for food or drink on this trip.  Being as close as it is to the Atlantic, fish dominates the Douro menu, with cod (for the most part slightly salted) as the victim of choice (Being a bacalou aficionado, I had no problem with this.).  The meals in the upper Douro were hearty and reminded me somewhat of Tuscan fare in its appropriateness for the land.  Drinks were always at hand either in the form of a tasting, an aperitif, or an accompaniment to a meal.  One popular aperitif is white port and soda on the rocks with a slice of lime and a mint leaf.  Very refreshing.  The meal progression is to first sit around in a circle and have a port-and-soda-fueled discussion before decamping to a nicely laid out table for the actual meal.

This trip was impeccably organized and well-managed on the ground.  I was not privy to the workings of the process but it was obvious that a yeoman Symington logistical effort underpinned the entire program.  Our transportation needs were frequent and varied but the bus, train, or boat was always there; and so were we. The concern for time, and respect for others, was especially evident in the cases where we were being handed off from Taylor's to Symington or vice versa.

If this program had been organized by anyone but Decanter I would have been advising them to get out now.  To quit while they were ahead.  I would have suggested that it would be exceedingly difficult to better  (and, after all, we always expect better) the experience that was afforded this year's participants.  That it would be hard to find partners who are so hospitable and generous with their time; so willing to include us in their family activities.  But after all, it is Decanter of whom we speak.  And it is Decanter to whom we will look next year for another mind-blowing experience.

I will detail the individual elements of our trip in future posts.