The Symington Family has been on a roadshow recently, launching Graham’s 80-year-old Tawny Port in a number of European cities. This Tawny category only came into being at the start of 2025, and several shippers with stocks of old wine on which to draw have already begun to release wines.
There is an apposite family story behind the Graham’s wine. Peter Symington, the winemaker responsible for producing 45 vintages of Graham’s, Dow’s, and Warre’s Ports, turned 80 years of age in 2024. Quietly spoken, Peter was never one to shout his considerable achievements from the rooftops, but he can be credited with the development of the stainless-steel robotic lagares. These have transformed the way Port is produced since they were first introduced in 1998. By the time Peter Symington retired in 2009, 70% of the family’s Vintage Port was being produced in these lagares, which deliberately simulate the action and pressure of the human foot. In the time that Peter Symington worked for his family firm (now Symington Family Estates), their production of Port rose from 1,000 pipes (c.555,000 liters) to 36,000 pipes (nearly 20 million liters).
In order to celebrate Peter’s 80th birthday, his son Charles (the fourth generation and current winemaker) delved into the Graham’s wine lodge to create an 80-year-old Tawny Port. At the heart of the blend are wines that were set aside in 1941 and 1942, when there was no export market for Port due to World War II. The wines were cherished and carefully monitored, but nonetheless, Charles Symington calculates that 64% of the original wine evaporated over the intervening years. Consequently, there are 600 bottles of Graham’s 80-year-old, with just 76 allocated to the UK. Like all good blended Tawnies with an indication of age, the final lote has been fine-tuned such that it is even greater than the sum of its parts. Maintaining balance and freshness is key. Graham’s 80-year-old is only the second wine to be bottled and released in this new category, which adds to the existing aged Tawny hierarchy: 10-, 20-, 30-, 40-, and 50-year-old. Anthony Symington, representing the fifth generation of the family, came to London in the autumn of 2025 to present the wine alongside a new blend of the 40-year-old. Both wines speak for themselves.
Tasting
Graham’s 80-Year-Old Tawny
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This wine immediately strikes you with its beautiful pale mahogany-tawny hues, with green-tinged amber on the rim. Lifted and delicately high-toned on the nose, with an appetizing, savory-sweet character of butterscotch, dried figs, walnuts, and just a hint of ground coffee. Gloriously smooth and suave in texture, caramelized fruit with marmalade richness offset by remarkable freshness, a streak of gentle acidity mid-palate persisting on the long (almost endless) finish. Seamless overall, exquisitely melded by age and skillful blending. Usefully you don’t have to drink it all at once. Due to its prolonged aging in cask in the relative cool of the Graham’s lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia, Charles Symington suggests that it can be drunk over a period of eight weeks after opening. This is the quintessence of Tawny Port: fabulous. | 99
Graham’s 40-year-old Tawny
Based on a colheita (a single-harvest Tawny) from the 1982 vintage—a good year, declared by a few shippers in preference to 1983—this wine is a pale brick-red tawny, with a golden-green-tinged amber rim. Complex and quite effusive on the nose, with a delicate, spicy lift and an aroma and flavor redolent of Brazil nuts, creamy milk chocolate, and dried raisin and sultana fruit. Mellifluous. Like the 80-year-old, this is seamless all the way through to a long delicate, fresh finish. Rich in style (in classic Graham’s mold), it nonetheless has perfect balance and poise. Anthony Symington calls it “happiness in a glass,” and who am I to disagree? | 96
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