Graham’s 80-Year-Old Tawny

Peter Symington turned 80 last year. Softly spoken and with 45 vintages to his name, he features in my book, Port the Douro, as one of a handful of ‘Men who Shaped the Douro’. In order to celebrate his birthday, Peter’s son Charles (4th generation and current winemaker) delved into the Graham’s wine lodge to create an 80-Year-Old Tawny Port. The basis of the blend comes from wines set aside during World War II when there was no export market for Port. Fine-tuned whereby the final blend is greater than the sum of its parts, this wine has now been authorised by the regulatory IVDP as an 80-Year-Old Tawny. It is only the second wine to be bottled and released in this new category which adds to the tawny hierarchy after 10-, 20-, 30-, 50- and 50-Year-Old. The wine is packaged in a wooden box with internal ‘wallpaper’ that illustrates the chestnut, oak and olive trees along with the mimosa and roses that grow in the Douro valley. The wine speaks for itself.

Graham’s 80-Year-Old Tawny *****

A really beautiful pale mahogany-tawny hue with a green-tinged amber rim; lifted and delicately high-toned on the nose with the appetising, savoury-sweet character of butterscotch, dried figs, walnuts and just a hint of ground coffee; gloriously smooth and suave in texture, creamy marmalade richness offset by remarkable freshness with a streak of acidity mid-palate that persists on a long (almost endless) finish. Seamless overall and a wine exquisitely melded by age and skilful blending. Charles Symington suggests that, once open, it can be drunk over a period of 8 weeks. Just 600 bottles in total, priced, at £2000 each. 19.5