produced by the symingtons symington family estates is a wine company and port wine house in portugal which owns and operates several vineyards and wineries and owns several brands of port madeira wine and douro doc wines including some of the oldest and most well known port and madeira brands . with their extensive vineyard holdings and many port brands the symingtons are often described as being a port empire . 1 2 the companies owned by symington family estates and individual family members together own 27 quintas estates in the alto douro region and additionally lease one and operate one as a joint venture . 3 these 25 quintas together have 940 hectares 2 300 acres of vineyards . 4 over 70 % of the port wine sold by symington owned brands is produced from grapes from these vineyards . 5 together with these land holdings the symingtons are the largest vineyard ownership group in the douro . 6 the symington family are members of the association primum familiae vini . 7 contents 1 history 2 wineries and brands owned 2.1 port wine 2.2 douro wine 2.3 madeira wine 3 references 4 external links history edit a model of a rabelo used to transport the wine along the douro featured in the symington family estate cellar of graham s the company was founded by andrew james symington who arrived in oporto from scotland in 1882 and initially joined graham s. 8 in 1891 he married beatrice atkinson who was descended from several generations of port wine shippers and producers the oldest known of which was walter maynard who is known to have shipped port wine already in 1652 . 9 by 1905 andrew james symington was a partner of warre & co and in 1912 he became a partner in dow s port . 10 in 1970 the symington family bought both graham s and smith woodhouse . 11 in 1989 the symington family became a partner of the madeira wine company mwc which at that time was controlled by the blandy family behind blandy s one of the madeira companies which had formed mwc . 12 in 1989 the symingtons also bought quinta do vesuvio which they consider the finest port quinta from the ferreira family which had run into economic troubles . 13 this quinta was used to introduce a high end single quinta port in the symington range . from 1999 dry douro wines were added to the symington range 14 and in 2001 the prestige brand chryseia was added . 15 wineries and brands owned edit dow s is another brand in the symington family portfolio . the wineries and brands owned by symington family estates are the following 16 port wine edit graham s established in 1820 warre s dow s cockburn s smith woodhouse quinta do vesuvio gould campbell quarles harris martinez douro wine edit chryseia altano quinta de roriz prazo de roriz madeira wine edit through the madeira wine company . blandy s cossart gordon leacock s miles references edit t. stevenson the sotheby s wine encyclopedia pg 338 339 dorling kindersley 2005 isbn 0 7566 1324 8 i. wilkinson british families raise a glass to 300 years of port in oporto telegraph november 29th 2003 the symington family p. 9 accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family p. 10 accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family vineyards accessed on december 25 2009 primum familiae vini the symington family pfv media library accessed december 30th 2009 the symington family primum familiae vini accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family p. 3 accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family since 1652 accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family p. 4 accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family p. 6 accessed on december 25 2009 madeira wine company accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family quinta do vesuvio guardian of port s great tradition accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family douro doc wines accessed on december 25 2009 the symington family p. 14 accessed on december 25 2009 symington family estates our wines accessed on december 25 2009 external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title symington family estates & oldid 673089818 categories wineries of portugalhidden categories portugal articles missing geocoordinate dataall articles needing coordinates navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran ais edit links this page was last modified on 26 july 2015 at 00 58 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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