People : Rupert Symington

By: Anthony Gismondi

People

The Symington family, with Scottish, English and Portuguese ancestry has been present in the Douro for five generations, since 1882.

We catch up with Rupert Symington at his very busy booth at the Vancouver International Wine Festival to talk about a modern Portuguese wine project, Chryseia, one of the pioneer wines of the now widely-recognised resurgence of non-fortified Douro reds. We also chat about one of his historical labels, the outstanding Graham’s 20-Year-Old Tawny Port, that he shared can be opened, poured, and enjoyed for weeks.

Written By: ag

Anthony Gismondi

Anthony Gismondi is a Canadian wine journalist and one of North America's most influential voices in wine. For over 30 years, he has been the wine columnist for The Vancouver Sun. The twice-weekly column is distributed across Canada through the Postmedia Network to millions of readers. In addition, Anthony hosts the BC Food & Wine Radio Show, broadcast in 25 markets across B.C. and available as a podcast on major platforms. He launched Gismondionwine.com in 1997, attracting one million monthly users from 114 countries. It continues to be a valuable resource full of tasting notes, intelligent wine stories and videos for the trade and consumers. Conversations with wine personalities are available on his YouTube Channel.