Healthy but very different future for Douro

The Port industry can look forward to a healthy but very different future according to Paul Symington, chairman of Symington Family Estates.

Speaking to the drinks business at the company’s recently refitted Quinta da Cavadinha – where Warre’s vintage Port is produced – he said: “The bottom part of the market is probably condemned.”

On the other hand, referring to the company’s automated lagares which mimic the action of human feet crushing the grapes, he added: “At the premium end, if we can make wine here in these lagares, in the way that we are, we will capture new wine drinkers and hopefully keep the traditional ones as well.”

He also spoke of his hopes for red table wines from the Douro. “I do believe we can make wines that could be a second wave – on a smaller scale – of the Super Tuscans,” he said, comparing the improvement in table winemaking in the region to the revolution in Italy during the ’70s.

“I think what has been learnt over the last ten years – and it’s only the last decade – means we are making really phenomenal red wines,” he added.

He also pointed out that the grape varieties and terroir of the Douro ensure that these wines are unique, and that the confidence to promote these qualities has grown significantly among the region’s top producers.

“We need to convince the Londoners, New Yorkers and Parisians that these wines are as good as we think they are and I would happily put some of the top red wines we are making –Vesuvio, Roriz, or Chryseia – alongside any of the great reds of the world,” he concluded.

Patrick Schmitt, 07.10.2010