Graham's Six Grapes Reserve

Graham's

Origin

Portugal

Type

Ruby Port

Barrel

Large Vat

Age

15 years

Alcohol

20°

Value

30 points

About the product

If you want to be introduced to port, a nice Ruby porto is the ideal way. Ruby immediately tells you what colour to expect in your glass: ruby red. It is a type of porto that matures only briefly in very large oak barrels, with the aim of preserving the fruity sides of the wine. So you get a ruby red, freshly fruity wine in your glass.

The Six Grapes Ruby Reserve from Graham's is an exceptional example of this style of wine. To produce this Six Grapes, Graham's winemakers use wines that have generally spent even less time in oak barrels than other Ruby portos, precisely to let the wine's fruity character shine even more.

The symbol of the six bunches of grapes on the bottle dates back to the 19th century. After each harvest, Graham's winemakers of the time marked each barrel with a number of bunches, according to the quality of the wine it contained. Six bunches meant that this was the wine of exceptional quality, which had potential to be declared Vintage. It was a sign of complexity, structure and balance. From the early 1900s, some of these wines were bottled separately under the Six Grapes label.

The current incarnation of the Six Grapes Reserve is dark red in colour with a lovely aroma of ripe plums and cherries that meets you from the glass. On the palate, the wine's complexity is immediately apparent, with a firm structure and a long, lingering finish.

About the brand

Graham's Port is the absolute reference when it comes to quality port. It is a house with a long and fascinating history that has been committed to producing products of absolute top quality, in all price ranges, for more than 200 years.

The story starts in 1820, when brothers William and John Graham founded the house. Soon the Graham's name became synonymous with quality, leading to the construction of the Graham's Lodge in Gaia and the acquisition of the Quinta Dos Malvedos in 1890. That was one of the first times a porto house invested in land in the upper Douro Valley. Eight years earlier, in 1882, one Andrew James Symington had moved from Scotland to Porto to work for the Graham family. There lies the seed of the link between the two families. In 1970, Andrew's grandsons would take over the business from the Grahams and build it into what it has become today.

Graham's wines are still produced and blended using traditional methods. It is master blender Charles Symington himself who tastes all the maturing wines and decides which barrels can be bottled or blended when. There is no scientific analysis involved, it is based entirely on the combined skill and experience of the experienced winemakers in Charles Symington's team.

Graham's has several vineyards, of which Quinta Dos Malvedos is the most important and prestigious - the vines in this Quinta enjoy the best the Douro Valley has to offer: abundant sunshine and reasonable rainfall. Other Graham's vineyards include Quinta do Tua, Quinta da Vila Velha and Quinta do Vale de Malhadas.