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 37 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. He is also the host of the BC Food & Wine Radio Show, which is broadcast in 25 markets across B.C. and available globally as a podcast on all the major platforms. He launched Gismondionwine.com in 1997, which now attracts more than one million monthly users from 114 countries. It remains a valuable resource, offering tasting notes, insightful wine stories, and videos for the trade and consumers. His extensive collection of videos featuring wine personalities is available on the Gismondi on Wine YouTube Channel.