Is Port Wine Dying? The Battle Between Tradition and Millennial/Gen Z Tastes. Rupert Symington

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in an away game,

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like an away away game. We're out here in Porto, Portugal about

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to have a conversation with Rupert Symington on the history of port

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and the history of Graham's winery. Introductions in just a moment.

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Hey, have a listen because the.

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The Psalm TV group just released cup of Salvation. It

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comes out on the 6th of October. It's already out by the time you hear

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this. And it's about a family in Armenia, the Kushgarians. It's

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a father daughter ensemble and it's about

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the history of wine in Armenia as well as this plight by the

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Kashkarian family to bring it back to life post

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Soviet world. It's a crazy, crazy story. Have a listen, but not why

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we're here today. Here I have a conversation with Rupert. So glad you could join

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us this morning. Morning, Paul, how are you? I'm doing great, thanks. It's good to

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see you again after your trips to la and our, our mutual

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friend Don Schliff and his incredible collection of.

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Yes, I'm very bummed. I was invited to a wonderful magnum tasting in a

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couple of weeks. Weeks time, it's just been canceled. I was looking forward to tasting

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these amazing 100 year old bottles of port. The, the last

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one which was his Quinta Noval, the

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Phylloxera Free Vineyard Nationale. Yeah, National. And

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I was like honored because the history with my father and Don and Don

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and I for many, many years when he ran wine warehouse but you know,

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there was only a couple of these bottles were the last bottles known to exist

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and I'd like. So how many can it serve? 30 or 40 people

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maybe. Right. Well, Don's the only person I know who filled in his swimming pool

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to build a wine cellar. I've been

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done and I was. People always go wait a minute,

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the best collection in the world might maybe in Glendale,

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California. This is not necessarily the hotbed. Anyway,

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so interesting to be here and experience Porto as

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a town not been here. And I'm starting to think about this,

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the experience of port and the idea of its

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beginnings and why it happened. And then the difference between the English

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versions and the Portuguese version, you shed some light on the sort of the history

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of Portugal. So port really started when

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particularly the British market was looking for alternative

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supplies of decent red wines.

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Britain was at war with France in

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the 17th century and

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British merchants came down, they toured the coast

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of Spain and Portugal in search of say, decent wines

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and they settled in place called Viana Do Castelo, which is about an hour north

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of here and discovered some decent wines

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and they started shipping them to the uk. As the business

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increased they became a bit more adventurous. And

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reportedly some people traveled up the Douro river and

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discovered about 60 miles inland,

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some monks growing red wines

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which were quite extraordinary. They were much richer and

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sweeter in fact than the wines from the coast.

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And these wines were then

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transported downriver on flat

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bottomed wooden boats to the coast to then be trans shipped to the

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uk. And what happened in the next hundred years was a bit of almost

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like a gold rush. There was, you know, people piled

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into the port trade. At some point during

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those hundred years people started

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realizing that the wines could referment on

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board ship and often they'd arrive in poor conditions. So they

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started dashing the wine with a little bit of brandy

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wine spirit. And that gave rise to what we call

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fortification which today is the difference between port and

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all other wines is that we actually add brandy to the, to the port

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during fermentation so we preserve some of the natural grape sugar

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in the fruit. So port went on to become

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the most popular, best selling and probably most

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expensive wine in the world. This is back in the early

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1700s. And many of the

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of the sort of British merchants who, who were engaged in the

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trade ended up. In 1703 there was a treaty

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signed between Britain and Portugal called the Methuen

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Treaty and that gave conferred rights on

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British merchants to do business in Portugal.

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And from then on a number of firms were

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established. Warren Company was

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established in Vienna in fact in 1670. But

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from 1720 onwards it became Warren Co in a Porto.

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There were later comers like Dow in

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1798, Graham in 1820

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and Cockburn in 1815.

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But Port went on to become, I say went

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on to become sort of the wine of the middle

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classes in the UK in particular. And today

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most British people still buy a bottle of port at Christmas and have it on

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their Christmas table, which is not very nice for us. It's still

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the, it's one of the biggest

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markets especially for better quality ports, even today. You

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know, it's interesting because during, I think in my heyday

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we were probably one of the biggest purchasers of port during the holidays.

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We seem to have had a group of customers through our direct to

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consumer company that liked it at Christmas time. But that's not what you guys

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want. You wanted to drink it all the time, right? And

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actually we've evolved our port offering. I think

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where we are today we're at the cellars in

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Villanova de Gaia. This is. Gaia and Porto are a bit like

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Buda and Pest. They're two different sides of the river. They're the same,

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effectively the same city, but with different names.

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We're about 100km from the

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Graham's winery, which is

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upriver. The river Douro

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starts in northern Spain. It's one of the longest

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rivers in Europe. And it comes down as it enters

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Portugal. It comes through a mountain range where it's cut a

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channel through the mountains. And this valley is quite

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extraordinary. It's probably one of the driest

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areas where grapes are grown in the world without irrigation.

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We are starting to use irrigation to mitigate climate change.

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But traditionally the grapes of the Duro have been.

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They're growing in this semi desert. And when

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you deny a vine water, when it doesn't have enough water,

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it produces obviously a much smaller crop and much more intensely flavored

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berries. So pork grapes are small and

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sweet. They're picked at about 14b

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compared to some Napa Valley Cabot Cab, which would be about 12 and a half.

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So once the port is. The port is all made up in the

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Douro Valley and the wineries are all about 100 miles, 100 kilometers from

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here. And today we don't sadly transport the

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wine anymore on boats. We bring it down by truck.

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But we have two very different

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climates. The Douro gets very hot in the summer. It's not a very good

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place for long aging of port. So what we do, we bring

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them down and we have a warehouse here with about

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5,000 barrels of what we call aging

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tawny. Tawny is the name we give to.

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It means brown, the color of the port. When you leave port in a

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barrel for 10 years or more, it loses that

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purple color and it takes on a sort of amber

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and the flavors become more dried fruits and less fresh

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fruit. Tawny has caught on,

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particularly in the summer months. We serve it chilled

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and it's quite nice to have opened up probably especially

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in the US a completely new experience of port. People

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used to buy a lot of, you know, reserve rubies and

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vintage ports. Now they're buying probably one bottle in four. Is a. Is a

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bottle of Old Tawny, a 10 year old or 20 year old tawny port. The

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conditions on the coast are ideal for maturing tawny. There's a higher

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humidity here. This cellar here is built

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with quite sort of tall ceilings. The

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wine never. The temperature varies between

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about 16 and 18 degrees centigrade throughout the year. So it doesn't get too

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hot. Porto is a Bit like San Francisco. We get a lot of fog

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in the summer, so when it gets too hot, the fog comes in and cools

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us down. So basically an ideal place to

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age port. So we have. The port is very much a split industry. We have

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all the vinification, the vineyards upriver and then all the

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administration and storage is down here on the coast.

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It's a beautiful city. We

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had dinner on the river last night and just enjoyed every minute of it.

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We had no expectations and didn't understand the history of

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Portugal. And you're Talking about the 1700s and the

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English trade was. I mean it seemed like with champagne as well.

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And now you're talking about port Madera and sherry. That the British market was

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pretty much the market for all things when it came to wine

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or fermented products. Is that the case today? Is. Is

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Britain still the main consumerism? It's less

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so. I think you know that. Funny enough, the biggest market for port

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today is Portugal. And

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in value, France is still the biggest in terms of volume.

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The French market grew in the 1960s and

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1970s when people were looking for

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other alternatives to the traditional aperitif market. And

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France is a huge aperitif market. And port is the only

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imported wine that's ever been successful. In France, I think it grew to

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one point. It was about three and a half million nine liter cases. It's about

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a third of the total. It's fallen off a bit now because I mean, you

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know, generally these were lower quality ports sold quite

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cheaply. But with Portugal's

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entry into the EU and with

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basically progress, port having been in

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the 1970s a fairly low cost product, labor in Portugal was

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cheap. We were able to sell port

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competitively with other drinks in the European markets.

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Now port has probably reached

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a point where it's quite inexpensive. It's a luxury

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for a lot of people. I can't think of any French

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arrested fermentation. There's something called

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mori, I think. And very few of them, if

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they are Muscat de Beaumont, Venice. Yeah.

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And. But, but port is. Is

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it. It's very much. There's two markets for port. There's

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the northern. Sophisticated northern markets

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drink port as a digestif. So after dinner that.

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That would be the uk, most of Scandinavia, the usa,

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Canada, and then you've got places like

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Belgium, Holland and France where it's drunk largely as

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imperative. And the quality tends to be.

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In Europe, it's much a standard ruby or tawny ports,

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whereas in the northern markets tends to be reserve ruby and above. So

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the better Quality ports are sold in the us, the UK and others.

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So how about the markets like the Asian

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markets that tend to be behind the curve? The they tend to start with

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Bordeaux and the classified gross and the best Napa and then they learn that there

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are other things in the world. Is that part of the world catching on to

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fortified brands? Funny enough. I mean, we, we've been trying to sell

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port in Japan for about 30 years without success. But

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so interesting, you know, places like South Korea,

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Taiwan, Singapore, even Indonesia, which is

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dodgy Muslim country, we're seeing extraordinary growth.

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I mean, not from a very high base, but

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I think South Korea did over half a million

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euros worth of business for us that year, which would have been unheard of 10

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years ago. So there is sort of potential port

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has a sort of enduring quality. And what's helping port a lot is

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all the people who are coming to Porto. There are a lot of Koreans

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coming to Porto now and I believe

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we've invested a lot in our visitor experiences here.

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And if you can give people a good experience when they

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visit, they'll take your brand as home,

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as a memory and hopefully buy it when they get home. So we have seen

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a little bit of that. You mentioned earlier off camera about the

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idea of marketing in today's world. And things are off

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a little bit. I sold my company because of the same reason at the time.

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And part of it is what you just said, the experiential part of

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wine is so important that they come to Porto. They come to this beautiful

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facility we're sitting in today and every time they open that

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glass of grams or wares or Dow, they're going to say, remember that,

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honey. Remember that whoever their significant other is

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that they had this glass. And it's different than

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the premise that my father's company was started on, which was the idea that somebody

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was selecting wine for you that had evaluated everything they could.

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Now it's about. And maybe it's the generations, maybe it's the millennials,

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maybe it's the Gen Xs, maybe it's the Gen Z's that are like, no, I

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want to be part of the experience. People want to go

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downstream and people want to understand the origin of everything they,

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they source. I mean, even my wife is refuses to buy,

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you know, tomatoes that are not grown in Portugal. Yeah, really. There you

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go. So, but I think, you know, with, with poor Port, there is

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an incredible story to be told. It's a bit of a shame

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that a lot of people who visit Gaia here, this facility,

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don't have the time to get up river because it. That is truly one of

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the most beautiful wine regions in the world. And I say that, you know, without.

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Without any shame. It's a beautiful, beautiful place, and it's a

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great place. You can take a day trip. There's a train that runs up.

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Up the river, and, you know, it's. It's actually just a beautiful way to

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spend. Well, that's one of our questions. I'll ask it on. On. On.

237
00:14:48,780 --> 00:14:51,780
We. Yeah, yeah, we have all the day off tomorrow, so to speak, and we

238
00:14:51,780 --> 00:14:54,860
want to get into the valley and see what's going on. So. Great. We'll talk

239
00:14:54,860 --> 00:14:57,340
about that in a minute. But, yeah, I think it's possible. You know, one of

240
00:14:57,340 --> 00:15:00,780
the things that's happened to Napa, as you already know, Bordeaux is a little simpler

241
00:15:00,780 --> 00:15:04,460
maybe, but I mean, it's almost impossible to. To start a brand.

242
00:15:04,540 --> 00:15:08,260
Right? I mean, the cost of land, the cost of equipment, the cost of

243
00:15:08,260 --> 00:15:11,830
picking, fermenting, and then waiting four years to release is rather

244
00:15:11,830 --> 00:15:15,550
expensive. And so it's almost impossible to just take Napa for an example,

245
00:15:16,110 --> 00:15:19,710
to get involved and try and do this is it. Can you start a winery

246
00:15:19,710 --> 00:15:23,470
in Portugal? You can, but there's a. Port

247
00:15:23,550 --> 00:15:27,390
has a sort of peculiarity that by law, you have to

248
00:15:28,030 --> 00:15:31,550
have in stock three times what you sell.

249
00:15:31,870 --> 00:15:35,630
So if I wanted to sell a case of port next year, I'd have to

250
00:15:35,630 --> 00:15:38,110
buy three cases this year and have it in stock at the end of the

251
00:15:38,110 --> 00:15:41,810
year to have the right to ship next year. So port is

252
00:15:41,810 --> 00:15:45,490
very capital intensive. There's a lot of money tied up

253
00:15:45,490 --> 00:15:49,250
in unsold stock. And that's

254
00:15:49,250 --> 00:15:53,050
a rule of the. That's the government. Government, yeah. We have. We have a

255
00:15:53,050 --> 00:15:56,490
thing called the Port Wine Institute. Institute, and that.

256
00:15:57,530 --> 00:16:01,130
That regulates our industry. We are actually one of the most

257
00:16:01,130 --> 00:16:04,930
regulated industries in the world. We have. We need a license to plant

258
00:16:04,930 --> 00:16:08,440
a vine and then a separate license to be able to turn that vine,

259
00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:12,080
that. That. Those grapes into port. Wow. And, you know, those

260
00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:15,800
licenses are very expensive because they're. You can't. You can only buy them.

261
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:19,520
You can't make. Print them. But, you know,

262
00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:22,680
we are. There haven't been that many new pork companies

263
00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:26,680
formed. I know I can think of one or two over the last

264
00:16:26,680 --> 00:16:30,440
20, 30 years. But there's been a lot of consolidation

265
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:33,620
in the industry, bigger groups buying out

266
00:16:34,340 --> 00:16:38,100
competitors. So my family bought Coben's

267
00:16:38,740 --> 00:16:42,460
Port. We bought the. The wineries and the vineyards

268
00:16:42,460 --> 00:16:46,100
in 2006, and in 2010, we bought the brand,

269
00:16:47,540 --> 00:16:51,340
and it's about. It's a. It's a business which, you know, it's

270
00:16:51,340 --> 00:16:54,980
about scale. There aren't that many customers in the world for ports.

271
00:16:55,540 --> 00:16:58,420
You just have to be more relevant. But that said, there are a lot of

272
00:16:58,740 --> 00:17:02,380
small independent growers who do a great job, make great wines and they,

273
00:17:02,380 --> 00:17:06,180
you know, they. They have their. Their fair share. So.

274
00:17:06,180 --> 00:17:09,540
Well, it's, you know, you mentioned something very important. You've already seen it. I don't

275
00:17:09,540 --> 00:17:12,860
know about worldwide, but you certainly see in the United States the consolidation of not

276
00:17:12,860 --> 00:17:16,380
only manufacturing, but the. The distribution of

277
00:17:16,380 --> 00:17:20,100
wine and port and distilled spirits in America is

278
00:17:20,100 --> 00:17:23,940
becoming smaller. Smaller number of players and you become this

279
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:28,160
line item in a book and that's not so hard. Now your

280
00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:32,160
family. How did the Symingtons get involved with this? Is this

281
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,040
back? My great grandfather

282
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:39,120
was born into a family in Scotland and

283
00:17:40,240 --> 00:17:44,040
his father was a man of letters. He was a poet. You know,

284
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:46,400
I don't think he ever did a day's work in his life, but he

285
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:50,880
had a. He had inherited a small fortune.

286
00:17:52,130 --> 00:17:55,650
And unfortunately my great great

287
00:17:55,650 --> 00:17:59,370
grandfather went bankrupt when

288
00:17:59,370 --> 00:18:02,770
a bank failed in Scotland in the 1880s.

289
00:18:03,570 --> 00:18:06,930
And so my great grandfather, aged 18,

290
00:18:07,570 --> 00:18:11,330
was sent out to work for a family friend who were

291
00:18:11,330 --> 00:18:15,090
the Grahams for the Grahams textile business,

292
00:18:15,090 --> 00:18:18,820
which was here in Oporto. There's a textile mill. They had another

293
00:18:18,820 --> 00:18:21,420
mill in Bombay in India.

294
00:18:22,300 --> 00:18:26,140
And anyway, my great grandfather worked for Graham's for about three years

295
00:18:26,140 --> 00:18:29,900
and he decided that the wine business was a bit more attractive than.

296
00:18:30,140 --> 00:18:33,900
So he started. He actually conducted a

297
00:18:34,060 --> 00:18:36,940
port sale on behalf of the Portuguese government.

298
00:18:37,900 --> 00:18:41,420
Was another business that had failed a port business.

299
00:18:41,740 --> 00:18:45,140
And there was a sort of large stock to be disposed of. Anyway, my great

300
00:18:45,140 --> 00:18:48,110
grandfather successfully disposed of the port

301
00:18:48,910 --> 00:18:52,630
and was given awarded a title by the Portuguese

302
00:18:52,630 --> 00:18:56,310
government which he didn't take. He conferred it on his

303
00:18:56,310 --> 00:18:59,830
assistant. But anyway, he got a taste for the port trade. He

304
00:18:59,830 --> 00:19:03,070
married a lady called Beatrice Atkinson,

305
00:19:03,630 --> 00:19:07,350
whose family had been here since the 1650s in the port

306
00:19:07,350 --> 00:19:11,150
trade. And that's where it all began. My great

307
00:19:11,150 --> 00:19:14,990
grandfather had three sons who took over the business in the 1920s

308
00:19:15,790 --> 00:19:18,430
and ran it successfully.

309
00:19:19,630 --> 00:19:22,870
World War II was a body blow. There was

310
00:19:22,870 --> 00:19:25,990
rationing. There was very little. The

311
00:19:25,990 --> 00:19:29,710
1945 vintage had to be bottled in sherry bottles because

312
00:19:30,190 --> 00:19:33,790
there were no glass bottles available in Portugal. And

313
00:19:34,990 --> 00:19:38,510
we basically business almost failed in the 1950s.

314
00:19:39,310 --> 00:19:41,870
There was no money to pay salaries. There was no business.

315
00:19:43,450 --> 00:19:47,130
My father, for instance, was denied a job in the business

316
00:19:47,130 --> 00:19:50,890
because there wasn't money to pay more family members

317
00:19:50,890 --> 00:19:53,290
so he only joined in 1960.

318
00:19:55,050 --> 00:19:58,570
Luckily in the 60s, things started to recover for the port trade and

319
00:19:58,890 --> 00:20:02,650
the French market grew very, very fast in

320
00:20:02,650 --> 00:20:05,930
the 60s and gave us a bit of breathing space.

321
00:20:07,130 --> 00:20:09,730
Vintage port came back and

322
00:20:10,690 --> 00:20:13,970
grew quite rapidly, which is our most profitable

323
00:20:14,770 --> 00:20:18,010
line in the 60s and 70s and we had some successful

324
00:20:18,010 --> 00:20:21,090
launches. We bought. In

325
00:20:21,090 --> 00:20:24,450
1970, my father and his cousins bought Graham's.

326
00:20:24,930 --> 00:20:28,490
So originally we'd had Dow and Waugh in the family fold until

327
00:20:28,490 --> 00:20:31,010
1970, 1970 we acquired Graham's

328
00:20:32,770 --> 00:20:36,210
and then we took it from there. My generation

329
00:20:36,530 --> 00:20:40,210
started working in the 70s in the business and

330
00:20:40,930 --> 00:20:44,210
by 1996 we had acquired

331
00:20:44,530 --> 00:20:47,930
the assets of Cobens. So each

332
00:20:47,930 --> 00:20:51,410
generation has added something. But it all goes back to

333
00:20:51,730 --> 00:20:55,530
the gentleman who we call AJS Andrew James Symington, who

334
00:20:55,530 --> 00:20:59,330
arrived aged 18 in Porto in 1882. Do you tell that story? I mean,

335
00:20:59,330 --> 00:21:02,850
you tell that story public. If you do a t. If you were coming to

336
00:21:02,850 --> 00:21:06,690
LA in October and you're probably going to make some presentations, you tell that story

337
00:21:06,690 --> 00:21:10,210
because that's fascinating story. I, I, if people ask, I tell the story, but it's

338
00:21:10,210 --> 00:21:14,010
quite lengthy, you know, and, and there's a lot more detail which I, I haven't

339
00:21:14,010 --> 00:21:16,450
told you, but, but there's a lot, there's a lot in there. One of the

340
00:21:16,450 --> 00:21:18,930
things you're talking about, World War II and I just finished the book Wine of

341
00:21:18,930 --> 00:21:21,810
the War from the Clad Strip couple. We had dinner with them last time we

342
00:21:21,810 --> 00:21:25,570
were in Paris, which is a fascinating tale of the Nazis coming

343
00:21:25,570 --> 00:21:29,320
to, to France. I don't know what happened in World

344
00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:33,080
War II in Spain and Portugal was there. Well, Spain

345
00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:36,920
obviously was neutral, but it was very much under the,

346
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:40,680
you know, under the. Franco was very much allied with

347
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:44,200
Hitler. Portugal was neutral,

348
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,320
sort of tucked away. Anyway, towards the end of the war,

349
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:53,160
Portugal sort of sided with the, obviously with the Allies.

350
00:21:54,650 --> 00:21:55,690
But my father

351
00:21:58,570 --> 00:22:02,290
was taken by his mother and with his siblings they were

352
00:22:02,290 --> 00:22:05,930
evacuated to Canada. So they spent the two years of the war

353
00:22:05,930 --> 00:22:09,769
in Montreal. Wow. For their own safety,

354
00:22:10,890 --> 00:22:12,930
the British government advised in

355
00:22:12,930 --> 00:22:16,370
1940 for all British

356
00:22:16,370 --> 00:22:20,220
nationals to leave Portugal and they sent a, a

357
00:22:20,220 --> 00:22:24,060
ship to take everybody away. Some people remained. My

358
00:22:24,060 --> 00:22:27,460
grandfather remained. He was unfortunately

359
00:22:27,540 --> 00:22:31,140
became very ill. When his family went to Canada, he was taken ill and

360
00:22:31,220 --> 00:22:34,980
spent most of the war convalescing. But he stayed

361
00:22:34,980 --> 00:22:38,620
here. And the business, it continued to

362
00:22:38,620 --> 00:22:42,380
make wine. It didn't sell a whole lot, but it kept

363
00:22:42,380 --> 00:22:46,100
ticking over and Portugal was really quite, and it

364
00:22:46,100 --> 00:22:49,780
is, I mean, it was a backwater back then and it's still, you Know,

365
00:22:49,780 --> 00:22:52,940
we're very much at the. The edge of Europe. You know, we're about as far

366
00:22:52,940 --> 00:22:56,740
from Ukraine as you can get in Europe. But. But we

367
00:22:56,740 --> 00:23:00,020
have. We've noticed a lot of friends of ours from Southern

368
00:23:00,020 --> 00:23:03,780
California posting that they were here and that they. Pictures in front

369
00:23:03,780 --> 00:23:06,380
of the churches and things. Wow, this is pretty interesting

370
00:23:07,660 --> 00:23:11,470
that has become that popular for tourism and

371
00:23:11,470 --> 00:23:14,270
based on the stores and the. I mean, we were on that street yesterday. Well,

372
00:23:14,270 --> 00:23:17,910
yesterday was a holiday. Right. So Republic holiday. Yeah, but man, it was

373
00:23:18,150 --> 00:23:21,790
very crowded. So during this

374
00:23:21,790 --> 00:23:24,550
period during the war. Let's just stand there for a sec, for a minute.

375
00:23:25,750 --> 00:23:29,390
The. The vintage port idea was still alive. I mean, the industry

376
00:23:29,390 --> 00:23:33,150
was struggling, probably weren't selling much. You couldn't

377
00:23:33,150 --> 00:23:36,470
get glass, probably. Well, cork shouldn't be a problem in Portugal. But

378
00:23:38,540 --> 00:23:42,260
they were still declaring vintages during those years. Yeah. So we bottled the.

379
00:23:42,260 --> 00:23:45,540
We didn't do anything in 39, 40, 41, 42 or

380
00:23:45,540 --> 00:23:49,220
43 or 44, 45 was

381
00:23:49,220 --> 00:23:52,699
declared as a vintage. But that decision was taken in

382
00:23:52,699 --> 00:23:56,300
1947, you know, to come

383
00:23:56,300 --> 00:24:00,100
two years after the harvest. But not because of the harvest quality, just probably

384
00:24:00,100 --> 00:24:03,500
the politics of the well. And it was an outstanding

385
00:24:03,580 --> 00:24:07,420
harvest in 1945 was incredibly good quality.

386
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:11,440
Back then we had only one farm.

387
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,440
Actually, that's not quite true. We had two farms. We sold at one of our

388
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:19,120
farms in the 50s when business was tough.

389
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:24,000
But those wines, the war and Dow 45,

390
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:28,560
were blended by my great uncle and

391
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,560
grandfather, respectively. They were identical

392
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:36,080
twins. It's just a lovely story of these two

393
00:24:36,430 --> 00:24:39,630
winemakers. One ran the war

394
00:24:40,350 --> 00:24:43,790
sample room and one ran the Dao sample room. And they were separate,

395
00:24:44,030 --> 00:24:47,750
really separate tasting rooms. And apparently

396
00:24:47,750 --> 00:24:51,430
one of them left a glass on the bench and his brother came

397
00:24:51,430 --> 00:24:54,990
in, picked up the glass and smelt it and said, melons.

398
00:24:55,550 --> 00:24:59,390
Five minutes later, the other brother came and picked up the same glass and

399
00:24:59,390 --> 00:25:02,750
went, melons. So they had exactly the same.

400
00:25:03,330 --> 00:25:06,850
We actually have a different. Different taste. That's very funny.

401
00:25:07,330 --> 00:25:10,930
So let's talk about vintage port for a minute for the listeners, what that means,

402
00:25:11,010 --> 00:25:14,810
because it's interesting to me, you all the. Is

403
00:25:14,810 --> 00:25:18,210
this part of the consortium of port makers

404
00:25:18,530 --> 00:25:22,330
that you submit samples? Do you all just get together and decide that

405
00:25:22,330 --> 00:25:25,970
the vintage is incredible and then you can declare vintage? And

406
00:25:25,970 --> 00:25:29,770
that's how we get the declared vintages. So declaration was a system

407
00:25:29,770 --> 00:25:33,480
that started in the late 1800s

408
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:37,080
and it was really an honour system. The Douro does have

409
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,880
because of its positioning. It has

410
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,880
rain that comes in from the coast, hits the mountains

411
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:49,120
and Depending on the year, more or less rain falls in the Douro, and that

412
00:25:49,120 --> 00:25:52,840
can quite seriously affect the quality of the grapes that are grown

413
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,570
there. Once every three years or so, there are the

414
00:25:56,570 --> 00:26:00,170
ideal conditions to make truly great wine. And the

415
00:26:00,170 --> 00:26:04,010
port trade decided early on, rather than do what the French do in Bordeaux,

416
00:26:04,010 --> 00:26:07,770
which is, you know, you sell every year at a higher price and say

417
00:26:07,770 --> 00:26:11,610
it's better than the last one, the port trade actually, you know, self

418
00:26:11,610 --> 00:26:15,130
limited and said, well, look, we're only going to go out and ask customers

419
00:26:15,130 --> 00:26:18,890
to pay for the wines from the truly great years. So that

420
00:26:18,890 --> 00:26:22,610
originated what we call the declaration of a vintage, where the.

421
00:26:23,110 --> 00:26:26,390
A number of shippers would look at their wines and then

422
00:26:27,030 --> 00:26:30,550
either conferring with each other or not or independently, they would decide,

423
00:26:31,110 --> 00:26:34,230
let's declare the 1945, for instance.

424
00:26:36,390 --> 00:26:40,190
The next question is, well, what do you do in years that you don't declare?

425
00:26:40,190 --> 00:26:43,910
Well, the answer is we make and bottle wines, but

426
00:26:44,230 --> 00:26:47,910
we sell them for a much lower price. They're wines,

427
00:26:47,910 --> 00:26:51,730
they're very good wines, but they're not the, the grapes. So vintage fort

428
00:26:51,730 --> 00:26:54,730
is a wine that is typically,

429
00:26:55,770 --> 00:26:59,370
obviously the grapes are grown in a great year. The wine goes

430
00:26:59,370 --> 00:27:03,050
into bottle at a relatively young age, about 18 to

431
00:27:03,050 --> 00:27:06,810
20 months old. It's bottled and it's bottled without any fining

432
00:27:06,810 --> 00:27:10,250
or filtration. So it's a wine like a table wine.

433
00:27:10,890 --> 00:27:14,650
It'll live its life in bottle port

434
00:27:14,730 --> 00:27:18,580
being a very. It's obviously higher in alcohol with the addition

435
00:27:18,580 --> 00:27:21,340
of the brandy. It's also naturally sweet.

436
00:27:22,860 --> 00:27:26,300
It has an incredible longevity. So vintage port

437
00:27:26,540 --> 00:27:30,380
took off and became famous because of it. It was a wine

438
00:27:30,380 --> 00:27:33,780
that, you know, and a lot of wine making was

439
00:27:33,780 --> 00:27:37,620
dodgy. Back in the late 1800s, a lot of red wines would go

440
00:27:37,620 --> 00:27:40,940
off after aging bottle. Vintage port,

441
00:27:41,020 --> 00:27:44,560
happily, not only didn't go off, but it got better. So the

442
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:48,200
wine became much more interesting. After 20, 25

443
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,720
years, the tradition evolved to

444
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,160
give a godchild or a grandchild

445
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,240
a pipe of port or a few cases of port, because it

446
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,960
would be ready when the child reached drinking age 21 or whatever

447
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,640
the wine would be, and it would be in good shape. So port went on

448
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,030
to become, or vintage port to become one of the. You know,

449
00:28:11,590 --> 00:28:15,350
it's interesting to remember that as recently as the 1950s,

450
00:28:15,910 --> 00:28:19,550
the top vintage port names traded for the same value

451
00:28:19,550 --> 00:28:23,310
as first growth Bordeaux. So really, vintage port was

452
00:28:23,310 --> 00:28:26,990
investment grade. I don't know where we went wrong or where they went

453
00:28:26,990 --> 00:28:30,790
right, but I mean, we lagged a little bit. The Mouton, well There's not too

454
00:28:30,790 --> 00:28:34,630
many dodge slips in the world. Right. But no. So Vintageport

455
00:28:35,110 --> 00:28:38,890
went on to become, I say, investment grade wine. The UK

456
00:28:39,290 --> 00:28:42,890
was really the sort of place de Bordeaux equivalent. Was

457
00:28:44,490 --> 00:28:48,330
the London wine merchants actually responsible for bottling a lot of vintage port

458
00:28:49,050 --> 00:28:52,250
back in the 1950s, 1960s. From

459
00:28:52,250 --> 00:28:55,130
1970 it became mandatory to bottle here

460
00:28:55,850 --> 00:28:59,650
in Portugal. So that was a change in the way vintage

461
00:28:59,650 --> 00:29:03,130
port was done. And from the 1970s onwards we started

462
00:29:04,610 --> 00:29:08,170
accumulating quite large cellars of. So

463
00:29:08,170 --> 00:29:11,650
whereas in the past London wine merchants would do the cellaring

464
00:29:11,810 --> 00:29:15,650
and, you know, the elevage of the wines, from 1970

465
00:29:15,650 --> 00:29:19,090
onwards it was up to us to, to do that, that work. So

466
00:29:19,170 --> 00:29:22,850
today we offer the wines on Premier. So we ship some wines,

467
00:29:23,890 --> 00:29:27,650
maybe about 2/3 of what we bottle, we ship within two years

468
00:29:27,650 --> 00:29:31,100
of harvest and the rest we hold back, you know,

469
00:29:31,180 --> 00:29:34,700
to supply restaurants in the future and private sellers with

470
00:29:34,780 --> 00:29:38,460
nicely mature. And in a minute I'll take you and show you the

471
00:29:38,460 --> 00:29:42,140
one of the cellars in the back here. And it's vintage port is stored

472
00:29:42,140 --> 00:29:45,740
lying down like red wine. It's

473
00:29:45,740 --> 00:29:49,420
unlabeled. It's just a cork in a bottle and some nice wine inside.

474
00:29:50,060 --> 00:29:53,460
That's an interesting thought and it'll move us to the

475
00:29:53,460 --> 00:29:57,310
contemporary part of this conversation because vintage

476
00:29:57,310 --> 00:30:00,550
port being basically ruby port and it

477
00:30:01,110 --> 00:30:04,310
acquires its character and transformation in bottle.

478
00:30:04,390 --> 00:30:08,070
Exactly. But, but the laying down of wines in bottle was something that

479
00:30:08,070 --> 00:30:11,190
only really started, you know, in any wine

480
00:30:11,750 --> 00:30:15,430
sector in the 1830s because prior

481
00:30:15,430 --> 00:30:19,030
to that bottles weren't cylindrical and you, you know, you

482
00:30:19,030 --> 00:30:22,610
couldn't lay down a flagon in a. Also,

483
00:30:22,930 --> 00:30:26,770
corks tended to rot and drop out, so

484
00:30:27,010 --> 00:30:30,610
you'd risk losing your production. So I think it was

485
00:30:30,850 --> 00:30:33,970
when the cylindrical bottle was first invented

486
00:30:34,690 --> 00:30:38,490
that gave rise to this competition between Burgundy and

487
00:30:38,490 --> 00:30:42,290
Bordeaux and port to see whose wine would last best.

488
00:30:42,450 --> 00:30:45,810
And before that there was no such thing as aged wine because there was no

489
00:30:45,810 --> 00:30:49,650
way of doing it. But port certainly came out.

490
00:30:50,260 --> 00:30:53,940
Vintage forte is one of the best sort of long term bets if you

491
00:30:53,940 --> 00:30:57,140
wanted to wait 25 years. Unfortunately today

492
00:30:57,780 --> 00:31:01,620
those 25 years are not on the Gen Z radar.

493
00:31:01,940 --> 00:31:05,500
Everyone wants instant gratification. So it's one of the

494
00:31:05,500 --> 00:31:09,300
reasons Vincent Sport hasn't done so well in recent years

495
00:31:09,300 --> 00:31:13,060
is because of the time it takes to get to perfection. Well, it's

496
00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:16,020
kind of interesting because it has to be in the bottle, it has to age.

497
00:31:17,070 --> 00:31:20,510
You know, tawny port for the listeners, it's aged in the barrel before it gets

498
00:31:20,590 --> 00:31:23,870
put in the bottle. So it's less, it's less

499
00:31:24,990 --> 00:31:28,230
relied on it to be in the glass. And this goes to this question because

500
00:31:28,230 --> 00:31:31,710
we're going to move to contemporary problems that we have in our industry. Cans,

501
00:31:31,710 --> 00:31:35,510
tetra packs. And I have a conversation coming up with a

502
00:31:35,510 --> 00:31:39,070
professor at a major university in America

503
00:31:39,070 --> 00:31:42,590
whose, whose job it is to find food grade coatings

504
00:31:42,970 --> 00:31:46,090
that will allow wine to last, let's say, 24 months in a can.

505
00:31:46,650 --> 00:31:49,610
And that's, that's absolutely. And the argument is

506
00:31:50,330 --> 00:31:54,130
the carbon footprint and it just can't happen

507
00:31:54,130 --> 00:31:57,850
in import, it can't happen in Borno or Burgundy, which

508
00:31:57,850 --> 00:32:01,530
is, can't be the political movement. This is not a political show.

509
00:32:01,530 --> 00:32:05,370
We have to be careful of that. But we haven't discussed climate change. Not going

510
00:32:05,370 --> 00:32:09,130
to have time today. But the idea that we're going to worry about

511
00:32:09,820 --> 00:32:13,460
the. Not because they worry about sustainability, that's important

512
00:32:13,460 --> 00:32:17,100
too, but somewhere we have to say, look, we

513
00:32:17,100 --> 00:32:20,620
need glass for what we produce. And

514
00:32:20,620 --> 00:32:23,740
putting, you know, vintage port in a can just isn't.

515
00:32:24,300 --> 00:32:28,100
But luckily in a vintage port is only, you know, it's less than 1%

516
00:32:28,100 --> 00:32:31,780
of everything we produce. And I for one would be more than happy,

517
00:32:31,780 --> 00:32:35,470
you know, we ship God knows how many cubicles, tons

518
00:32:35,470 --> 00:32:38,870
of glass around the world. That's true, you know, every day.

519
00:32:39,030 --> 00:32:42,030
And I'd love to find a, you know, I think the whole wine industry needs

520
00:32:42,030 --> 00:32:45,830
to, you know, move on because there are very few wines that need

521
00:32:45,830 --> 00:32:49,590
to be aged in bottle. You know, that's true. I mean most wines are,

522
00:32:49,590 --> 00:32:53,270
you know, drunk probably, you know, on the day they're purchased and,

523
00:32:53,270 --> 00:32:57,110
and bottled probably a week before that. Right, so that's true. It's.

524
00:32:57,670 --> 00:33:01,350
So it's a really, the tetra pack idea, I think is great

525
00:33:01,900 --> 00:33:05,620
cans. You know, we did have an experiment

526
00:33:05,620 --> 00:33:08,940
with a mixed port drink in a can, but the

527
00:33:09,900 --> 00:33:13,420
problem is whereas cans of

528
00:33:13,580 --> 00:33:16,540
soda are pressurized, you know, they've got the pressure of the gas.

529
00:33:17,260 --> 00:33:19,820
When you put wine in a can, it's very easy for the can to

530
00:33:21,020 --> 00:33:24,820
get bent or distorted and that reduces the sort of charm

531
00:33:24,820 --> 00:33:28,180
of it. But anyway, I noticed downstairs you had some sustainability

532
00:33:28,180 --> 00:33:31,800
awards. And I think of all the industries in the world that, that

533
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,480
produce anything, whether it's widgets or semiconductors or wine, that the

534
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,960
wine business is probably the most ideal for

535
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:42,560
sustainable operations. Yeah. So we became a B corp

536
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:46,360
about four years ago, which is, I think, you know, the

537
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:49,120
gold standard of, you know, it obliges you to

538
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,440
actually write, you know, change your company statutes

539
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,050
to, you know, to recognize. And it's not about just

540
00:33:57,690 --> 00:34:01,210
saving money on, you know, glass or

541
00:34:02,010 --> 00:34:05,450
putting in solar panels as a whole. You know, it's how you treat customers, it's

542
00:34:05,450 --> 00:34:09,090
how you treat your staff. There's a whole lot of. It's a point

543
00:34:09,090 --> 00:34:12,730
based system. I'm really pleased we've done it. It's a great, you know,

544
00:34:12,730 --> 00:34:16,330
we were the first Classified Bee Corp Winery in Portugal.

545
00:34:16,730 --> 00:34:20,410
There are a bunch in the us, European standard. US standard, yeah.

546
00:34:20,810 --> 00:34:24,170
And. But we've also joined a group called the

547
00:34:25,930 --> 00:34:29,730
International Wineries for Climate Change, which

548
00:34:29,730 --> 00:34:33,290
is headed up by Kendall, Jackson and Torres from Spain.

549
00:34:33,690 --> 00:34:37,450
And there's some pretty strict

550
00:34:37,450 --> 00:34:41,130
rules that it's all about reducing your carbon footprint. And

551
00:34:41,690 --> 00:34:45,330
one of the things I'm fascinated about is how we can

552
00:34:45,330 --> 00:34:48,949
capture the carbon that we produce with port.

553
00:34:49,349 --> 00:34:53,069
I always say the port because we only ferment half the sugar

554
00:34:53,069 --> 00:34:56,869
into alcohol. We're already producing only half the carbon footprint of any other

555
00:34:56,869 --> 00:35:00,629
wine industry. But it'd be nice to be nice to actually

556
00:35:00,949 --> 00:35:04,629
capture that carbon and put it somewhere. And we're working quite hard on it.

557
00:35:05,029 --> 00:35:08,829
The whole industry is working on ways of. It's not only just

558
00:35:08,829 --> 00:35:11,909
capturing the carbon, but it's also then transforming it into something that's

559
00:35:11,989 --> 00:35:15,750
storable rather than letting it clear into the atmosphere.

560
00:35:15,990 --> 00:35:19,110
The climate change, you know, Burgundy is affected by it.

561
00:35:19,750 --> 00:35:23,390
And I, again, it's not political as to why there's

562
00:35:23,390 --> 00:35:26,270
climate change. I think everybody can agree in our industry that there is and there's

563
00:35:26,270 --> 00:35:29,910
problems now that oddly is probably a month behind its typical

564
00:35:29,910 --> 00:35:33,750
harvest this year. And, you know, other, other parts of the world

565
00:35:33,750 --> 00:35:37,310
are a month ahead of what they would do normally. What's happening

566
00:35:37,310 --> 00:35:40,740
here? So here we had on this harvest, just

567
00:35:40,740 --> 00:35:43,980
finished the last grapes about three days ago.

568
00:35:45,260 --> 00:35:48,860
We had the most extraordinary. We had three weekends in a row

569
00:35:50,060 --> 00:35:53,700
of heavy rain. And there's a sort of harvest

570
00:35:53,700 --> 00:35:56,780
rule of the portrait. Any rain during the harvest is not good news.

571
00:35:58,060 --> 00:36:01,580
The first weekend, you know, created some actually quite

572
00:36:01,820 --> 00:36:05,620
necessary because we have such dry summers here that,

573
00:36:05,620 --> 00:36:08,060
you know, order to finish off with the ripening. It's quite good to have a

574
00:36:08,060 --> 00:36:11,260
little bit of rain at the beginning of September to allow

575
00:36:12,460 --> 00:36:16,180
the vine to start circulating its SAP again and

576
00:36:16,180 --> 00:36:18,980
finish off the ripening of the grape. So that first rainstorm was not a problem

577
00:36:18,980 --> 00:36:22,620
at all. When we had another one the next weekend, another one the weekend after

578
00:36:22,620 --> 00:36:25,900
that, that's when by the third week we were seeing

579
00:36:26,620 --> 00:36:30,140
some rot appearing. We were seeing some dilution of

580
00:36:30,540 --> 00:36:34,110
the. And a month prior to that,

581
00:36:34,110 --> 00:36:37,870
we'd had an attack of the sharpshooter oh

582
00:36:37,870 --> 00:36:41,510
no. And which basically stops the

583
00:36:41,750 --> 00:36:45,550
photosynthesis process. It basically injects

584
00:36:45,550 --> 00:36:49,310
something into the leaves which kill off the leaves and stop the. So

585
00:36:49,310 --> 00:36:53,030
that was a. It affected mainly the duras

586
00:36:53,030 --> 00:36:56,590
priora, the most easterly part of the dura affected it quite

587
00:36:56,590 --> 00:37:00,280
badly. And that sort of suspended some of the bomais. Rather low,

588
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,280
lower than ideal. But on the whole we've made above average quality

589
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,040
wines. Despite those two. The weather problem and the. And the

590
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,720
sharpshooter problem. Every year is getting

591
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,200
stranger. So we had these torrential

592
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,760
rainstorms in May, April,

593
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,520
May of this year, and then reasonably cool

594
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:26,370
summer, which is quite welcome. Um, last summer was the opposite. We had a sort

595
00:37:26,370 --> 00:37:30,210
of temperatures 45 degrees centigrade for sort of

596
00:37:30,210 --> 00:37:33,810
three weeks in July, which ended up drying up most of the grapes.

597
00:37:34,370 --> 00:37:38,130
Certainly I have a vineyard that I own personally and

598
00:37:38,290 --> 00:37:41,970
I lost something like. Last year I lost something like 40% of my production to

599
00:37:42,130 --> 00:37:45,930
dehydration, which was really much fun. I noticed the

600
00:37:45,930 --> 00:37:49,490
Symington still wines down there. We'll wrap this up with just that

601
00:37:49,490 --> 00:37:52,750
conversation about still wines. We were here, were in Bordeaux at the expo in

602
00:37:52,750 --> 00:37:56,350
1993 and we went to the Portuguese booth. You know, of course it was

603
00:37:56,350 --> 00:37:59,790
vino verde and there was port and things. But the still reds were really

604
00:38:00,110 --> 00:38:03,470
quite awful back then. What has happened

605
00:38:03,470 --> 00:38:06,950
worldwide that these. I had one last night. It was

606
00:38:06,950 --> 00:38:10,630
fabulous that the Portuguese have seen

607
00:38:10,630 --> 00:38:14,110
the marketplace for still wines, or they decided to. They always made them

608
00:38:14,110 --> 00:38:17,710
probably, but decided to get into this. I think there's two

609
00:38:17,710 --> 00:38:21,410
factors here. I think that the. The old fashioned consumer of.

610
00:38:21,410 --> 00:38:24,930
Of wine in Portugal was a bit like the. The old

611
00:38:24,930 --> 00:38:28,650
fashioned Spanish consumer. They, they liked wines that spent 20

612
00:38:28,650 --> 00:38:31,970
years in. In wooden vats and were bottled, you know,

613
00:38:32,450 --> 00:38:36,290
like, sounds delicious. Balsamic vinegar, you know. And, you know, I, I

614
00:38:36,290 --> 00:38:38,370
think it was a lot of, you know, a lot of wines, a lot of

615
00:38:38,370 --> 00:38:41,810
oxidation and, and some, you know,

616
00:38:41,970 --> 00:38:45,780
some sort of excessive wood aging. There

617
00:38:45,780 --> 00:38:49,340
was a new course that came into Villarreal University,

618
00:38:49,340 --> 00:38:53,140
started a winemaking course, University of

619
00:38:53,140 --> 00:38:56,900
Trages Monch Utad. And that bred a whole

620
00:38:56,900 --> 00:39:00,620
generation of young winemakers who were going overseas for experience.

621
00:39:01,100 --> 00:39:04,900
And basically the whole wine industry, I would say from the

622
00:39:04,900 --> 00:39:08,460
mid-90s, started cleaning up its act. You know, they were

623
00:39:08,700 --> 00:39:12,230
better. There was temperature control for whites. There was, you know,

624
00:39:12,310 --> 00:39:13,510
more understanding of

625
00:39:15,990 --> 00:39:19,510
bugs in the wine and chemical processes and

626
00:39:20,070 --> 00:39:23,510
just generally better. And this sort of

627
00:39:23,990 --> 00:39:27,750
coincided with a change in consumption. People looking for

628
00:39:28,070 --> 00:39:31,830
fresher, younger reds and whites.

629
00:39:32,550 --> 00:39:36,390
And I would say we came seriously into red wine

630
00:39:36,390 --> 00:39:40,110
from the Duru in, in 2000. Prior to that,

631
00:39:40,110 --> 00:39:43,830
we made wine as a byproduct because we have this odd system

632
00:39:43,830 --> 00:39:47,390
that our port vineyards only have a certain

633
00:39:47,390 --> 00:39:50,790
percentage of our grapes are allowed to be made into port. There's a pork quota,

634
00:39:51,110 --> 00:39:54,550
and then everything else over and above that quota has to be declassified.

635
00:39:54,870 --> 00:39:58,630
And we would basically take the best grapes, make them into port, and

636
00:39:58,630 --> 00:40:02,070
then the lesser grapes would be made into a rather rough and ready

637
00:40:02,150 --> 00:40:05,820
table wine. From 2000, we decided to

638
00:40:07,020 --> 00:40:10,740
take a more sort of studied approach and we went into

639
00:40:10,740 --> 00:40:14,460
partnership with Bruno Pratz, who was the former owner of

640
00:40:14,460 --> 00:40:18,300
Coste Estonnel in Bordeaux. And we make a wine

641
00:40:18,300 --> 00:40:21,180
together with our 23rd year working together,

642
00:40:21,980 --> 00:40:25,780
called Chrisea, which I'm happy to say now

643
00:40:25,780 --> 00:40:29,540
sells at a price which competes with our best ports. And it's

644
00:40:29,540 --> 00:40:33,200
now my, my original goal and I've managed that project for the

645
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:37,040
family for 23 years. And the

646
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,440
objective was to end up with a wine that justified

647
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:45,200
taking the best vintage pork grapes and transforming them into red wine instead of

648
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,000
port. And I'm happy to say that cuisine now sells at

649
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,240
the same price as a, as a good vintage port. So it was a worthwhile.

650
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:56,080
They're quite complex. They have a ton of body, they've got

651
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:59,800
great balance. The one we had last night at this restaurant, just, you

652
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:02,940
know, every time I tasted it, I thought, wow, there's something to taste in this.

653
00:41:03,020 --> 00:41:06,700
It's fabulous that we get to experience grapes like Turriga

654
00:41:06,700 --> 00:41:09,980
Nacional and Cezanne, those kinds of things, as a still wine.

655
00:41:10,220 --> 00:41:13,900
Well, luckily Portugal hasn't gone down the, you know,

656
00:41:14,220 --> 00:41:17,820
the Cabernet and Syrah route. You know, we've stuck to our

657
00:41:18,220 --> 00:41:21,900
indigenous varietals and there's really exciting wines

658
00:41:21,900 --> 00:41:25,580
being made now in, in the down Galantejo,

659
00:41:25,580 --> 00:41:29,260
the Douro and even Vinga Verde. You know, Vin Verde was known

660
00:41:29,260 --> 00:41:32,510
for inexpensive, high volume

661
00:41:32,750 --> 00:41:36,030
whites with a bit of fizz added, you know, and, and

662
00:41:36,670 --> 00:41:40,190
my family's just bought a vineyard up on the Spanish border near

663
00:41:40,190 --> 00:41:43,950
Monsant, which is actually one of the. Was one of the first

664
00:41:43,950 --> 00:41:47,550
estates in Portugal. They're probably the first estate of being there to

665
00:41:47,550 --> 00:41:51,150
bottle Alvarino as a single varietal back in the 1920s.

666
00:41:51,150 --> 00:41:54,430
Really? Wow. And we've got great plans for that. We've also

667
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,240
acquired a vineyard down on a mountain on a bench

668
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,520
500 meters up in the Alentejo, so on a mountain range, not on the

669
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,360
plain. And there we're making the most extraordinary

670
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,440
whites and reds. The whites are particularly stunning

671
00:42:11,439 --> 00:42:15,200
My friend Daryl Corty. I don't know if you know Daryl. I know Darryl well.

672
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,520
Tasted the Font Silja white and declared it to be as good

673
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:23,320
as a medium ranking white Burgundy, which made us all very happy. That's very

674
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,920
kind of me. Thank you, Daryl. But

675
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,560
it's interesting. So we are branching out of obviously

676
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:33,440
our land holdings in the Douro are the biggest and

677
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:38,160
our main operation is wine make operations in the Douro. But we are branch.

678
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,760
We've now got something in the Matasia and something in bingo ver to

679
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,600
expand the portfolio. Well, we're going to have to leave that for the next

680
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,440
conversation because I want to hear about that. Monsant wines are one of my favorites

681
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,700
from this part of the world. It's such a pleasure to be here and have

682
00:42:52,700 --> 00:42:56,380
a conversation with you. I know you got a lot on your plate. I mean,

683
00:42:56,380 --> 00:42:59,780
I didn't realize you just brought in the last grapes three days ago. So you're

684
00:43:00,100 --> 00:43:03,900
in the fermentation now, so. Well, I'm luckily not involved in any way

685
00:43:03,900 --> 00:43:07,260
in the harvest. So I've been sitting at my desk in

686
00:43:07,260 --> 00:43:10,340
Porto most of the time when my cousin Charles has been up running

687
00:43:10,900 --> 00:43:14,380
his viticulture team and winemaking team. But we've just

688
00:43:14,380 --> 00:43:16,580
opened up a brand new winery

689
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:21,720
up in the Ataid Valley which is on the northeastern part of

690
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,920
the Douro. And it's

691
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,240
going to be LEED certified. We hope it's a

692
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,280
sustainable design. And you know, we're

693
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,080
finishing it off. We had to get it open for the harvest. It's not quite

694
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:39,560
finished. It's got a living roof. It's a pretty cool building

695
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,680
and it works. It made really good wine this harvest. How about that?

696
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,400
How fascinating that there's. The twins were going at each other now the cousins are

697
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:50,960
working together. This is a fascinating conversation. Thank you again for your time. I hope

698
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,640
to see you in la. What's. What's on schedule when you're there? So

699
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,360
I'm going to go and visit the new owners

700
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,840
of Wine Warehouse. What's the end of

701
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:05,680
it? Breakthrough. Breakthrough beverage. Yeah. Which I'm looking forward to that. And

702
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:10,280
I'm also. I've got a couple of press events in San Francisco, which

703
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,840
I'm going to be doing. So. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I'll be.

704
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:17,520
I'll be there in like two weeks time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

705
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:21,320
Thank you again. Cheers. Great call. Thank you. Take care. Hey, welcome to the

706
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:25,120
adjunct to the Rupert

707
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,160
Symington conversation. In Portugal,

708
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,640
when my wife and I set out to go to Europe. This last month,

709
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,800
we had all the intentions of the world of going to Armenia

710
00:44:37,950 --> 00:44:40,270
to shoot some footage with their news organization

711
00:44:42,750 --> 00:44:46,110
about the changes in the wine industry. We have a whole 10

712
00:44:46,110 --> 00:44:49,830
episodes that we want to produce and do some podcasting.

713
00:44:49,830 --> 00:44:53,309
My wife is going to go to a woman's conference.

714
00:44:54,190 --> 00:44:57,830
But the war changed all that, and so we were sort of stuck. We

715
00:44:57,830 --> 00:45:01,430
didn't know where to go, what to do. You have tickets, they're already

716
00:45:01,430 --> 00:45:05,080
paid for. You know, that's just kind of a mess. And you're on the

717
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:08,680
fly. Despite the fact that we have so much technology in our

718
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:12,480
hand, it's still cumbersome to reroute a

719
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:16,320
trip like that. But we're fortunate in that we were able to reroute

720
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:20,000
to Portugal. So after we left Italy, which I

721
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,720
talked about, we ended up flying to

722
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:27,480
Paris. And after Paris, we spent

723
00:45:27,720 --> 00:45:31,410
four, four nights in Portugal, in Porto, which

724
00:45:31,410 --> 00:45:35,170
is north Portugal. A couple of things that are important

725
00:45:35,170 --> 00:45:38,930
about the Portuguese wine industry. My father and I visited

726
00:45:39,250 --> 00:45:42,850
France in 1993 and went to Vin Expo, which is the largest

727
00:45:43,330 --> 00:45:46,610
wine show in the world. And we went to the Portuguese booth

728
00:45:47,890 --> 00:45:50,970
and it literally was virtually

729
00:45:50,970 --> 00:45:54,780
unpalatable. Now, port, as we know, is

730
00:45:54,780 --> 00:45:58,340
a dessert style wine that is made

731
00:45:58,420 --> 00:46:02,140
through arresting the fermentation of

732
00:46:02,140 --> 00:46:05,860
the fermented grapes. And what that does is it leaves

733
00:46:06,180 --> 00:46:09,460
a residual sugar amount in the wine.

734
00:46:10,340 --> 00:46:13,460
And they arrest the fermentation by pouring distilled

735
00:46:13,860 --> 00:46:16,500
spirits into the fermentation tank.

736
00:46:17,140 --> 00:46:20,580
Brandy, typically. And all of a sudden their

737
00:46:21,220 --> 00:46:24,820
fermentation stops. There's high sugar content and high

738
00:46:24,820 --> 00:46:28,420
alcohol content. Hey, it can't be that bad, right? And it's a

739
00:46:28,420 --> 00:46:31,380
fascinating beverage. We got to spy

740
00:46:32,180 --> 00:46:35,780
vintages back to the 1800s when we were there in Portugal.

741
00:46:36,660 --> 00:46:40,460
But I bring it up because port wine is the

742
00:46:40,460 --> 00:46:44,020
north part of Portugal. And also now they're

743
00:46:44,020 --> 00:46:47,080
making rather stupendous and world class

744
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:51,080
still wines. Still wine being non dessert, non

745
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:54,040
sparkling red and white wine, basically.

746
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:58,760
And the interesting part about the port trade over the years,

747
00:46:59,720 --> 00:47:03,080
and it sort of came about because

748
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,200
the trip to England for their regular wine,

749
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:11,280
they were experiencing secondary fermentation and spoilage along the

750
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:14,940
way back in the late 1700s. And so they decided to

751
00:47:14,940 --> 00:47:18,660
start adding alcohol to it. And this is the resulting

752
00:47:18,740 --> 00:47:21,940
product and rather sophisticated and

753
00:47:22,020 --> 00:47:25,380
elegant. But now that they're making regular wines,

754
00:47:25,380 --> 00:47:29,220
trigonacional, Cezanne, other kinds of grapes, they're

755
00:47:29,220 --> 00:47:33,020
getting some world class recognition on their regular still wines. And

756
00:47:33,020 --> 00:47:35,940
you'll see them at the markets. Now, Whole Foods does a lot of

757
00:47:36,420 --> 00:47:40,150
Portuguese Red wines. The point

758
00:47:40,150 --> 00:47:43,230
of that being I had a chance to sit with Rupert Symington, as you just

759
00:47:43,230 --> 00:47:46,510
heard, who is on the English side of

760
00:47:47,070 --> 00:47:50,110
the Portuguese wine trade. There are two basic

761
00:47:50,430 --> 00:47:53,710
types of Portuguese port makers

762
00:47:54,110 --> 00:47:57,790
in Portugal. There's the Portuguese owned ones like Ramos Pinto

763
00:47:58,030 --> 00:48:01,710
Kopqui, the ones that we visited as well. And then there's

764
00:48:01,710 --> 00:48:04,750
the English versions like Taylor Fladgate or Taylor,

765
00:48:05,510 --> 00:48:09,230
as well as Mr. Symington's winery,

766
00:48:09,230 --> 00:48:12,790
Graham's Dow Ware. So

767
00:48:12,790 --> 00:48:16,630
when the industry started to change and the product became

768
00:48:17,270 --> 00:48:20,470
shippable, the English got involved.

769
00:48:21,350 --> 00:48:24,910
The Portuguese and the French weren't getting along, so the

770
00:48:24,910 --> 00:48:28,630
English took that position and all of a sudden now they're

771
00:48:28,950 --> 00:48:32,750
trading and the English went in and started to buy up some of these Portuguese

772
00:48:32,750 --> 00:48:36,540
houses. This is hundreds of years ago. So it's a rather interesting conversation

773
00:48:36,540 --> 00:48:39,180
with Mr. Symington, as you've already heard,

774
00:48:40,060 --> 00:48:43,180
because of the evolution of not only port,

775
00:48:44,300 --> 00:48:48,020
but there's still wines as well. We did not get to go to the

776
00:48:48,020 --> 00:48:51,620
Douro Valley as he suggested, because of the

777
00:48:51,620 --> 00:48:55,380
timing of our trip. But next time for sure, when we

778
00:48:55,380 --> 00:48:59,220
come to Portugal and go to the Porto region, we will go

779
00:48:59,220 --> 00:49:02,910
upstream on the River Duoro and visit this.

780
00:49:05,070 --> 00:49:08,750
What's to be one of the most beautiful wine growing regions in the world.

781
00:49:09,470 --> 00:49:13,310
And there's some very interesting pieces to that. One is it's so

782
00:49:13,310 --> 00:49:16,990
steep that it's impossible to mechanically harvest the grapes. So the

783
00:49:16,990 --> 00:49:20,030
grapes are all hand harvested. And

784
00:49:20,430 --> 00:49:23,990
there's a particular vineyard from Kythan called the

785
00:49:23,990 --> 00:49:26,280
Nasty now, which

786
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:31,480
for some reason as high as it is on the mountain, was not affected by

787
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:35,240
phylloxera in the 1800s. So it's never been uprooted. And so here

788
00:49:35,240 --> 00:49:38,800
is this amazing parcel of land that creates

789
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:42,480
one particular port that I

790
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:46,240
was. What's the word, Honored to be

791
00:49:46,240 --> 00:49:49,640
invited to a tasting recently to taste what they call a

792
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:53,260
vertical of this particular vineyards. Ports,

793
00:49:53,820 --> 00:49:57,500
meaning vertical, meaning different years. All the way

794
00:49:57,500 --> 00:50:01,340
through 2016, we went back to the 1800s, the

795
00:50:01,340 --> 00:50:04,460
two day tasting. So I'm

796
00:50:05,100 --> 00:50:08,859
particularly partial to port. I'm particularly interested in the history of

797
00:50:08,859 --> 00:50:12,700
port and I think that you were able to get a good grasp of

798
00:50:14,060 --> 00:50:17,780
what happens there and the personality it takes to be part

799
00:50:17,780 --> 00:50:21,600
of the trade. In this last podcast with Rupert,

800
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:23,440
Cheers. Have a listen.

801
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:35,800
Thank you for listening to Wine Talks with Paul Calum. Carry and don't forget to

802
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:39,440
subscribe because there's more great interviews on their way and

803
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:43,040
folks have a great time out there in the wine world. Cheers.