DAN CARBON - November's Forum Guest Corner Host

[Derek T.]

two little ones bouncing off the walls ...

Last night I was out very late at a dinner party

Which one of those do you really expect us to believe is the reason for your lack of steam, Dan?

[Symington Family]

Hi Dan, tanks for taking the time to answer and elaborate on the Capela Port. Unfortunately, we'll not see it in Quebec, neither the top wine of Vesuvio

I'd like to read your opinion on the Port market. Will it grow, diminish in quantity but quality will rise?

How important do you think the tourism will be part in making Port industry more viable. Any fear of loosing the authenticity of the region with the increase of tourism?

Fred

I think the Port market will grow. Let me re-phrase that, I think the Port market should grow and could grow if the category was better promoted and more effort went into education. Tourism will play a role in that, but not a decisive role. Tourism will help raise the visibility of Port and is a very effective way to educate people about Port’s unique origins and how it is made. Hopefully visitors become Port evangelists and go back to their home country and tell their friends, who in turn adopt Port and continue to spread the word.

The issue of losing authenticity due to tourism is not one that concerns me – the Douro is by its very nature a rugged and time-worn region where tradition lives on while all around it, the world grows faster and more complex. Far more damaging to the authenticity of the region is the economic conditions of the Douro farmers who make up the cultural fabric of the Douro and who are finding it difficult to live on the wages that result from the major supermarkets driving the price of Port down.

[Symington Family]

Quarles Harris: seen and tasted only rarely by me. Is QH a brand to be a purpose to otherwise idle grapes, or does it have stylistic consistency? If the latter, please say more?

Quarles Harris is one of the oldest Port Houses, being established in 1680 and over three centuries has built an outstanding reputation for the quality of its Ports. During the early part of the 1920’s, a direct descendant of Quarles Harris and his wife Dorothea Dawson, Reginald Quarles Harris, a bachelor, sold the company to his cousin’s husband, Andrew James Symington, the principal shareholder of Warre & Co Ltd and Silva & Cosens, Ltd (Dow’s Port). Andrew James Symington was determined to revive the firm, and was able to re-establish Quarles Harris as one of the top Port Houses once again. Quarles Harris Ports are drawn from vineyards in the Rio Torto and Pinhão valleys of the Alto Douro where Quarles Harris have been making and buying wines from farmers for centuries.

Port is not easy to sell. Vintage Port in particular. No winery produces a Vintage without making a substantial investment and therefore taking a big risk that the wines will sell. There are many easier and less costly things to do with idle grapes, thats for sure. Quarles Harris has pockets of very strong supporters in a handful of markets. But it gets overshadowed in the Symington portfolio by Graham, Dow and Warre (and Smith Woodhouse and Vesuvio in some markets) and the marketing and promotional efforts don't adequately stretch to encompass it, so it flies under the radar. One benefit of this is the cost of the wine is kept at a very reasonable level, so it always offers superb value for money.

Quarles Harris does have stylistic consistency, but with a wider band of variability than one of the top brands, reflecting that the wines chosen for the blend, while sourced from the same area of the Douro (primarily the Torto valley), are more influenced by the winemakers skill and prefernces in a given year. Still, the wines are characteristically drier than Graham's, but not so dry as Dow's, and share some of the aromas of the Smith Woodhouse wines in my opinion. These are wines that will easily sit alongside the top Ports in the trade and while perhaps not steal the show, they may surprise you.

[Julian D. A. Wiseman]

Thank you. In particular

Quarles Harris does have stylistic consistency, but with a wider band of variability than one of the top brands

seems to show a (seemingly natural) balance between terroir and the wine-maker’s skill.

[Symington Family]

When we were at Quinta do Bomfim this October, we saw that all of the wines appeared to be made by autovinification. I was shocked by that. My understanding was that autovinification was an inferior method for making Vintage Port... but obviously I've had to rethink that. So my question...What is the thinking of the Symingtons with respect to trodding grapes? Do they have a preference between foot trodding, robotic lagars, autovinitication, etc? What is their thinking behind what method they have chosen to use at each property?

This is a good question – really glad you asked it.

Less than 20% of all Port sales are in the ‘premium category’, i.e. Reserve Ports and above. The Douro, like every other wine region in the world, does not only produce super premium wines.

That means that over 80% of the Douro’s grapes are made into Ruby or White Ports. It is quite simply not practical or remotely economic to make these wines in lagares. This became clear to all in the Douro in the late 1960’s. So alternative methods of vinification are required for the Ports that make up the majority of sales around the world.

It is just a question of using the appropriate vinification method for the different styles of Ports.

The Symingtons are proud of the fact that they make more Port in lagares than any other producer in the Douro. Approximately half of the lagar-made Port is made in traditional lagares and half in the modern ‘automated treaders’ (the robotic lagares). The total of the lagar-made Port produced every year exceeds our total sales of Premium Ports from Graham’s, Dow’s, Warre’s, Smith Woodhouse and Quinta do Vesuvio.

So lagar-made Port is our preferred method of making our finest Ports, but not to the complete exclusion of all others.

As you know the Symington's pioneered the use of sophisticated winemaking technology in the Douro with their Robotic Treading Lagares. Here it is important to make a distinction between those machines that actually tread the grapes, and those that simply push down the cap - they are by no means equal. Simply plunging the cap without first having properly tread the grapes, is not the way to make great Port. The Symingtons steadfastly believe in the importance of real treading, both manual and automated, rather than the widespread use of machines that just punch the cap down. Again, cap punching is not the same as real treading, the resulting wines lack structure and body. See our paper on automated treaders elsewhere on FTLOP; automated treaders can exceed traditional foot treading in quality terms for several reasons.

OK, now lets tackle the question of autovinifiers. Here PR spin has once again collided with the truth. Some people have said that autovinifiers are ‘violent’. This would be laughable if it was not downright dishonest. It is true that the regular release of the CO2 (as generated in every type of fermentation vessel) makes a sudden noise. But this action of releasing the gas has absolutely nothing to do with the wine inside the tank. The release of the C02 simply allows the wine in the top ‘tray’ to run back over the ‘cap’ underneath in a way that is no different to any pumping-over fermenter as used all over the world. I ask you what the difference is between this and a person hosing down the cap with the juice that has been pumped up through a pipe from the bottom of the tank? Occasional visitors are surprised by this noise and so readily believe a story about autovinifiers somehow being ‘violent’. Well I am sorry to put reality in the way of a good story. And its worth noting that autovinifiers can operate without any external power source, so they significantly reduce the winery’s carbon foot-print.

As a final thought, consider this: an autovinifier costs almost double the cost of a conventional pumping-over tank because the stainless steel (in the case of the modern ones) has to be of a thicker gauge and it needs two valves, one for the wine to run over the cap and one for the CO2 release. So why buy an expensive autovinifier if a regular fermenting tank, costing half the money, does a better job?

The truth is that for years we have been amused by some of the misleading stories that are told and have quietly been going on making some simply outstanding Ports using this tried and tested method. Used well, by those who understand them, an autovinifier makes very good Ports.

I forwarded your question to Paul Symington, and he responded with a long email on this topic, some of which I paraphrased above. He closed his email to me with the following, which I want to share with you:

My family has been making Port from father to son for 5 generations in the Douro. We have the experience of countless Port harvests that we have used to develop several different methods of making Port. At the end of the day our Ports speak for themselves. We are very satisfied that how we farm our vineyards and how we vinify their grapes, has resulted in the fact that at the major international tastings (especially the blind tastings) our wines, at every level are usually classified at the very top.

I couldn't have said it better.

[Symington Family]

OK Dan, Roy has brought this upon you so here goes:

Without breaching commercial confidentiality, can you please describe the relationship and interactions between Symington Family Estates and Cockburn? Who owns what following the coming together? (quintas, new wines, old stocks, brands etc.) Who makes the decisions on wine making, blending, marketing etc? Are there plans to bring the Cockburn brand fully inside the Symington stable in the future? if so, when is that likely to be?

...and, as supplementary question, what are the long-term plans for the Martinez brand? It seems somewhat under-represented on the Symington websites despite the fact it appears, unlike Cockburn, to be wholly owned and under your control.

...and, as a second supplementary question, do you happen to know the circumstances that led to Quinta de Eira Velha falling into the ha nds of Taylor Fladgate at the same time as Martinez, a brand associated with the quinta for half a century, was brought into the Symington family?

Derek

Hi Derek. Very tasty questions indeed.

In 2006 the Symingtons agreed to buy the assets of Cockburn’s. Beam retained the rights to the Cockburn’s brand. The deal was relatively sophisticated and some of it is confidential, but in general terms, the Symingtons took possession of the quintas, the lodges in Gaia and stocks of wines with the exception of the Vintage wines, which remained with Beam. Ongoing, the Symingtons produce the wines for Beam, to their specifications. All aspects of marketing the Cockburn brand (promotion, packaging, etc) are decided by Beam. There are no plans to change the current relationship.

Martinez was at one time a very important and well respected brand of Port. It passed to Symington with the purchase of the Cockburn assets and has been integrated into the Symington portfolio, although somewhat slowly. The last few years have not been terribly conducive to adding brands to a portfolio, and Martinez has had to be patient. With as many brands and wines as we have, in a very competitive sales environment, we have to be disciplined in the projects we choose to take on. You might be able to do everything, but rarely can you do everything well. The Martinez range packaging was redesigned and the brand will shine again with a bit of polish and elbow grease.

And the best for last. Eira Velha…This quinta was privately owned by a family from the UK. The wines were made under contract by Martinez and occasionally sold as single quinta vintage Port. When Martinez was acquired, the family that owned the property indicated that they would go on in a similar way, but managing a property in the Douro is difficult when you live there and from a distance…well the property was soon on the market and the Fladgate group purchased it. The Symingtons considered it carefully but ultimately let the property go because they felt it was well overvalued.

[Symington Family]

Well, I think that just about does it.

I would like to thank Roy for inviting me to sit in the hot seat this week and to all of you who took the time to post some really good questions. I have enjoyed it and hope that you found it a good read. More importantly, I urge you to continue doing what you are doing –your dedication and enthusiasm for Port is priceless. Keep spreading the word. Let me see if I can figure out how to add one of these little yellow guys.... There.


Cheers.

[Derek T.]

Thanks for taking the time to do this, Dan, it is very much appreciated and it has been very interesting to read your responses.

Feel free to stay involved here and chip in on any of the subjects discussed. It is always great to have an opinion from inside the tent

Derek

[Roy Hersh]

Dan,

What a phenomenal week. You've left quite a historic group of responses to the many questions you've tackled. Thank you for taking the time to join us and I must ask this final question based on one of your previous answers.

Far more damaging to the authenticity of the region is the economic conditions of the Douro farmers who make up the cultural fabric of the Douro and who are finding it difficult to live on the wages that result from the major supermarkets driving the price of Port down.

I know this is not an easy problem to solve, nor do I think any one of us can do it. But if you have a couple of ideas or suggestions ... I think we would all learn from you and we'd be extremely interested in ANY solutions ... whether hypothetical in their nature, or serious possibilities.

[Glenn E.]

Thanks for being our featured guest, Dan! I really enjoyed your answers to all of the questions and appreciate the time and effort you took to be here with us.

[Peter W. Meek]

Dan,

Thanks for spending the week with us. Informative and fun.

[Eric Ifune]

Yes,
Thank you!

[Andy Velebil]

Dan,
Thank you for spending the week with us answering all those great questions. It is truly appreciated

[Eric Menchen]

If you can, make it double blind. Each glass gets it own number and only the organizer knows which glasses contain which port. ... I think the rest unconsciously wanted to find that their tastes matched his. I was suspicious and asked to restage the tasting.

Very interesting Peter. Groupthink at work. When I hosted a tasting, I thought of going a step further in a different direction, not to stop correlation between people, but to make it so even the organizer didn't know what was what. My thought was that I put all the wine into decanters, A-H. My wife would pour into glasses 1-8, but not in that order. She wouldn't know what A-H were, and I wouldn't know the decoder key from numbers to letters. Alas, time and other factors prevented this. Perhaps in the future ...

Thank-you also Dan. I wish I could have been around and gotten a question in. I'm still wondering about the correct pronunciation of Warre's.

[Moses Botbol]

You should have your wife decant the bottles so you have no idea what is what from the color.

[Eric Menchen]

You should have your wife decant the bottles so you have no idea what is what from the color.

Even better.

[Roy Hersh]

My daughter does decanting and then my wife places them into numbered bags for all of my blind tasting at home. That way I am clueless about what is being tasted. Very important to have this done by them. For the 2007s, I could never have been as objective had my wife not mixed up the bottles that are in my cellar and then done the bagging with the numbers.

[Symington Family]

[quote="Eric MenchenThank-you also Dan. I wish I could have been around and gotten a question in. I'm still wondering about the correct pronunciation of Warre's. [/quote]

Hi Eric. Warre's is pronounced like the war in World War I but with an s on the end.

Cheers