Cockburn’s retraces its golden age

Symington Family Estates set out an aim of restoring the Cockburn’s brand to its former glory, as the company hosted a vertical tasting from the Port house reaching back to 1896.

“It’s a voyage of discovery,” explained Paul Symington, joint managing director of Symington Family Estates, as he welcomed wine writers from the UK, Holland, Portugal and Russia to The Factory House in Porto. “Having bought Cockburn’s we thought we really needed to discover the DNA of this brand.”

Symington Family Estates bought the Cockburn’s vineyards and winery in 2006, before finally acquiring the brand name from Beam Global in 2010. In addition to its focus on improving quality, the company has already launched new packaging and this summer reopened the Cockburn’s lodge in Vila Nova de Gaia to the public.

Pointing to the high esteem in which the brand used to be held, Symington observed: “In the first part of the last century, Cockburn’s fetched significantly higher prices than any other brand.”

Although the tasting skipped what Symington described as “challenging years in the ‘80s”, it offered the chance to track Cockburn’s quality and character through a series of acclaimed vintages including 1970, 1963, 1945, 1927 and 1908.

“We’re trying to go back and see the essence of what made Cockburn’s great,” remarked Symington, who nevertheless admitted of this “huge investment” for his family: “It will take a while before people take Cockburn’s seriously again – at least two declarations.”

However, as the quality and longevity of the line-up made itself clear, Symington insisted: “Our intention as a family is to bring that back eventually, however long it takes.”

Offering his thoughts on how the Cockburn’s character compares with other brands within the Symington portfolio, he suggested: “These wines have a hint of dryness, but not the austere dryness of a Dow’s.”

The brand joined a Symington portfolio which features Warre’s, Dow’s and Graham’s, taking the Symingtons’ Douro vineyard holdings to 947 hectares, the largest of any producer in the valley.

Despite this scale, Symington maintained: “We didn’t buy Cockburn’s because we like to build empires. It was a defensive move, not an offensive move: we knew if we didn’t buy Cockburn’s, someone else would.”