For The Love Of Port

• 1963 Graham Porto Vintage - Portugal, Douro, Porto
  Bricking medium red color with pale meniscus; earthy, spice box, sweet meat nose; lovely, hedonistic but poised, dried cherry, raspberry, chocolate palate with sweet tannins and serious grip; very long finish 97+ pts. (decanted for nearly 4 hours) (97 pts.)

Lunch wines at Graham Lodge with Dominic Symington
Dominic Symington and Roy Hersh


Over lunch, Dominic claimed that the Douro is like Washington State, and Porto is like the Cascades. They�ve had fifty percent of the usual rainfall there over the last few years, so the vines have been very stressed.

Dominic told us you can age a colheita, and it puts on a little more weight and depth, while it loses some freshness. All aged tawnies and colheitas have to have the bottling date on them. When he's not drinking Portuguese wine, Dominic likes Cote Roties. Dominic�s memorable first great non-Port red was a 1961 Ducru when he was working in the wine business in London. Dominic offered that the 1977 Smith Woodhouse and Gould Campbell are also outstanding. He attributed this to the ability of those houses to choose just a few pipes and make a small quantity of something spectacular.

2002 was the greatest disillusionment of Dominic Symington�s life, since, as of 9/15, things were perfect. Then it started raining for days and killed the vintage. They had to abandon and destroy the whole crop of Touriga Nacional.

Dominic is involved with Madeira Wine Co. too. In the late �80�s, the Blandys asked the Symingtons to get involved in marketing their Madeiras. The Symingtons became equal partners in Madeira Wine Co. in 1989. Madeira Wine Co. had always made some canteiro wines, but the Symingtons got them to do dramatically more natural aging in casks, starting the wines on the top floor of the traditional lofts, and then bringing them down to the cooler floors or lodges after some time in cask. They don�t add caramel. They�ve stopped using the commercial, heated 60 degree centigrade tanks. Francisco is the chief winemaker for Madeira Wine Co., and he tells them that 30-35 years is the minimum aging needed for releasing a young Madeira. They lose 5% of the volume annually in the early years when the wine is on the top floor. The Symingtons suggested that colheita Madeiras would be a good entry to help generate interest, but originally they weren�t allowed to until more recent legislation permitted it. Then, once the law permitted it, for the first three months it didn�t allow for varietal or style designation of the Colheita. So the Madeira Wine Co.�s first Coheita under the new law was a 1994, and it was a blend. In �96 they made a Malmsey Colheita.

This tasting note is one of several related tasting notes. Click [here] to see the original note in context.