GRAHAM

This is from a cask, one of three remaining, thought to date from 1882. More details here. Bright orange tawny colour and very intensely aromatic. Once the little tasting bottles were opened at the launch in Christie's, London the whole room was perfumed. Impressively clean and pure and it immediately reminded me of orange peel which, I see, I also found in their 1952 Colheita released in 2012, although I had completely forgotten this when I tasted the older wine. Really appetising and super-clean. Drink: 1920-2030 Rating: 18.5/20 Jancis Robinson OBE MW - www.JancisRobinson.com (Jun 2014)

The sample I tasted of the not-yet-bottled Symington Graham’s Ne Oublie was much more expressive – I could smell it a foot away from the glass, curling, intense, like bitter orange peel and caramelised clementines, then tasting rich with dried fruit and toasted almonds underneath it. “Not like wine at all, really, but delicious. I was still enjoying the nose before I washed up this morning,” emailed a friend who had poured a tiny glass the night before. That is some wine. And it will go on. The Symingtons have three casks of 1882 wine and plan to bottle just one now; the next generation will decide what to do with the remaining two, which means we might see an even more ancient colheita (single vintage tawny) in years to come.Victoria Moore, The Daily Telegraph (Jun 2014)

“You simply can’t create complexity of this order in under a century or so, I suspect…There was a cleanliness and a precision about the wine, though, that was a testament to 130 years of exemplary stewardship… This is no mummy, no museum piece, no doubtful fingernail in a dusty glass case, buta synopsis of life and time.” World of Fine Wine, Issue 37, 2012Andrew Jefford (Nov 2012)