Home › Wine Notes › W. & J. Graham's (Symington Family Estates)
W. & J. Graham's 'Six Grapes' Reserve Port NV
Fortified (ruby reserve Port)PortugalNV
By Daniel Min · Tasted 2019-11-13 · Published 2026-09-09 · Updated 2026-09-09
At a glance
In one line
1.0/5 — lower than Vivino's 3.9 average · world avg price US$21 · Vivino 3.9 (13,524 ratings), 20% alcohol, US$21–24 at overseas retail.
Critics listed on Vivino: 88 (Jan 2019) · 90 (2004) · 91 (2003) · international competitions: gold 95 (2017), silver (2015), bronze (2012, 2014) · Mark Squires, Wine Advocate: "an iconic brand… lifted and fresh, with focused intensity and beautiful fruit"
Market note: The Graham's range runs Fine Ruby < Six Grapes (Reserve) < LBV < 10/20/30/40-year Tawny < Vintage Port. Six Grapes is pitched as 'Vintage Port in an everyday style' and is one of the best-selling reserve Ports in the world. It is a mass-market wine rated by 13,000 Vivino users, but 3-star ratings are common (30%) — how people feel about sweetness decides the score.
Father's note — Daniel Min
Original author of the notes“Sweet.”
What I learned today: the same bottle, with a different size of glass and a different moment, stays with you as a completely different day.
Friday, Christmas morning. After closing on Christmas Eve I went to Mom's place and slept there. When I woke up, Mom had already left for the bakery. Today is the day more customers come to pick up cakes than any other day of the year. On the table were a loaf of stollen and a note. "Warm it up." I set the little box with the brooch I hadn't managed to give her yesterday next to the note and left. Half the stollen went into my bag.
In the evening, the bar was even quieter than on Christmas Eve. Minjae had gone to a family gathering. Master Seo set out one small glass and one big glass and asked, "Which glass should I use?" The smell rising from the bottle was very strong. Plum jam, raisins, chocolate, and a sweetness that stung the tip of my nose. I picked the small glass.
The moment that sweetness reached my nose, my tongue flinched first. My nose keeps every scent it has smelled, date and all. Late autumn when I was twenty-one, a Wednesday evening with cold rain drumming on the window. Out of all the glasses that night, this was the only bottle Father poured generously into a big red-wine glass. I swallowed one sip and screwed up my face. It tasted like cough syrup. When I looked up, Father had exactly the same face. We saw each other's scrunched-up faces and burst out laughing at the same moment. Father wrapped the bottle back in its cloth and put it on the top shelf of the cupboard. I never saw that bottle come down again. I don't know the bottle's name.
The note is one word. "Sweet." One star. In all of Father's notes, this is the only bottle with a single star. The bottle was Graham's Six Grapes Reserve Port. Master Seo said port is meant to be drunk a little at a time, chilled, after a meal. That night we drank it from big glasses in the middle of dinner. I stuck a wine-name Post-it into the notebook. Maybe that one star wasn't so much for the bottle as for the two of us that night, who picked the wrong glass.
After closing, I took the stollen out of my bag and split it with Master Seo, with the last sip of port left in the small glass. This time I didn't make a face. When I checked my phone, there was a message from Mom. She's wearing the brooch. What I learned today: the same bottle, with a different size of glass and a different moment, stays with you as a completely different day.
What this wine is
Port is the fortified wine of the Douro Valley in northern Portugal. Partway through fermentation, grape brandy of around 77% alcohol is poured in and the yeast stops; the sugar it never got to convert stays in the wine, and the alcohol rises to about 20%. So Port is sweet, strong and hard to spoil. When 18th-century Britain, at war with France, could no longer drink Bordeaux, British merchants made Douro wine this way and shipped it home, which is why most of the 'Port houses' along the river in Porto still carry British names. Graham's is one of them. The story goes that in 1820 the Scottish brothers William and John Graham accepted 27 pipes of Port in settlement of a textile debt. In 1970 the Symington family bought Graham's — fitting, since Andrew James Symington, the family's founder in Port, had taken his first job at Graham's in 1882. The Symingtons now run the Douro's largest group of Port houses: Graham's, Dow's, Warre's, Cockburn's.
Six Grapes is the face of Graham's. In the 19th-century cellar, each cask was graded with a drawing of grape bunches, and six bunches meant a cask of the highest class, fit for Vintage Port. From the early 1900s some of those casks were bottled and sold on their own, and that is this wine. Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Amarela, Tinto Cão — people often say the six bunches on the label stand for six grape varieties, but the original meaning was grade, not grape. Fruit from Graham's own vineyards (Quinta dos Malvedos in the Douro Superior among them) is aged two years in large oak vats, filtered and bottled. 20% alcohol. As dense as Vintage Port but made to be drunk without bottle age: an 'everyday Vintage Port'. The producer's note: "Dark red colour, with a seductive rich perfume of ripe plums and cherries. Complex, with a good structure and a long lingering finish."
What the world says
The most recent critic score listed on Vivino is 88 (January 2019), behind a 91 and a 90 from 2003 and 2004. In international competitions: gold with 95 points in 2017, silver in 2015, bronze in 2012 and 2014. Mark Squires, the Wine Advocate's Port critic, called it "an iconic brand… lifted and fresh, with focused intensity and beautiful fruit." For a reserve Port, that is top-of-class praise — though in Port criticism anything under 90 means 'a well-made everyday Port', not a masterpiece.
The Vivino community has rated it 13,524 times at an average of 3.9 — after Veuve Clicquot, the most-drunk bottle covered in this magazine. The distribution is the interesting part: 66% at 4 or above, 30% at 3, 3.7% at 2 or below. 1 star: 123 people, 0.9%. I am one of the 123. Keywords: plum 256 and blackberry 207; chocolate 274 and vanilla 112; raisin 221, prune 87 and fig 67; cherry 222; and cheese, 79. Structure: sweetness 4.9/5, intensity 4.8, acidity 3.0. A sweetness of 4.9 is a number this magazine has never seen before.
"Nice! A delicate and soft Port; balanced sweetness in line with the figs, raisins, nuts and lots more. Good acidity and very drinkable already." — Vivino review, Sep 2019, 4 stars
"From a Symington tasting. Aged 3 years, made in a vintage style. Deep ruby. Blackberry, black cherry, clove, liquorice and vanillin." — Vivino review, Feb 2022, 4 stars
"Now this is what I call a Port with balls. Full, warm and inviting. Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Tinta Cão — hence the name, Six Grapes." — Vivino review, Dec 2022, 4 stars
"Good-value ruby Port with a deep crimson colour, bright fresh aromas of red fruits and a hint of violets. Intense and youthful with a lovely sweetness, red plums and a little spiciness. Finishes quite short." — Vivino review, Nov 2017, 4 stars
How I drank it
November 13, 2019, 1 star. The note is one word: "Sweet." It is the only 1-star entry among the 759 records in my Vivino log.
I logged sixteen bottles that day. The top score was 4.5 (Almaviva, Veuve Clicquot, Two Hands, Alta Vista, Charles Dauteuil); this bottle was the bottom. Graham's never appears in my log again, and this is the only fortified wine I have ever logged.
My 1 is 2.9 below the community's 3.9 — the widest gap between my score and the community average anywhere in my 733 ratings. The Vivino-registered critic score is 88 (2019), it took Gold at 95 points in a 2017 international competition, and the community structure data puts sweetness at 4.9/5. I plan to drink it again on its own terms — 8–10°C, a 60 ml pour, after dinner with cheese — and update the score.
Vivino community data
NV vintage rating distribution (13524 ratings, average 3.9)
| 5★ | 1669 (12%) | |
| 4★ | 7303 (54%) | |
| 3★ | 4058 (30%) | |
| 2★ | 371 (3%) | |
| 1★ | 123 (1%) |
Most-mentioned aromas
| Family | Mentions | Top keywords |
|---|---|---|
| Black fruit | 847 | plum 256 · blackberry 207 · blackcurrant 53 · black cherry 52 |
| Oak | 731 | chocolate 274 · vanilla 112 · dark chocolate 86 · oak 77 · caramel 44 |
| Dried fruit | 404 | raisin 221 · prune 87 · fig 67 |
| Red fruit | 350 | cherry 222 · raspberry 34 · strawberry 26 |
| Spice | 147 | licorice 45 · cinnamon 29 · pepper 29 · mint 13 |
| Earth & leather | 132 | honey 32 · smoke 19 · cocoa 18 · leather 14 |
| Dairy & ferment | 100 | cheese 79 · cream 15 |
Structure: Acidity 3.0/5 · Intensity 4.8/5 · Sweetness 4.9/5
Average by vintage (all vintages: 13524 ratings, average 3.9)
| Vintage | Average | Ratings |
|---|---|---|
| NV | 3.9 | 13524 |
Other wines Father scored 1.0 →
Read next
Swipe for more →
Tasted the same dayAntinori (Tenuta Montenisa), 'Marchese Antinori' Cuvée Royale Franciacorta NV
Italy · Lombardy★½☆☆☆
Tasted the same dayKendall-Jackson, Vintner's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
United States · Sonoma★★★★☆
Tasted the same day1865 Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Leyda Valley 2015
Chile★★★★☆Same producerCaymus Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
United States · Napa★★★★☆
Same producerDomaine Saint-Damien, Gigondas Vieilles Vignes 'La Louisiane' 2014
France · Rhône★★★½☆
Same producerNapa by N.A.P.A., Michael's Red 2015
United States · Napa★★★★☆
Same producer[yellow tail] Shiraz 2023
Australia
Same producerKendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay 2014
United States★★★☆☆
Highly rated by FatherJacques Selosse Lieux-dits Le Bout du Clos Ambonnay Grand Cru Extra Brut
France · Champagne★★★★★
Highly rated by FatherLouis Roederer Cristal Rosé Vinothèque 2008
France · Champagne★★★★★
Highly rated by FatherMaison Leroy Saint-Aubin Premier Cru Le Charmois Blanc 2002
France · Burgundy★★★★★
Highly rated by FatherClos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 (Napa Valley)
United States · Napa★★★★★More from Portugal
Swipe for more →
Explore
Bottles Father gave five stars
Only the wines Father scored a perfect 5
→
Wines in manga, film and history
Bottles that show up in manga, film and history
→
Wines you can buy at the supermarket
Wines actually bought at the supermarket
→Frequently asked questions
What kind of wine is Graham's Six Grapes?
A non-vintage ruby reserve Port from Graham's in Portugal's Douro (founded 1820, owned by the Symington family). A fortified wine in which brandy is added mid-fermentation to keep the sweetness, 20% alcohol, aged two years in oak vats before bottling. 'Six Grapes' comes from the six bunches drawn on the best Vintage-Port-grade casks in the 19th-century cellar. Vivino 3.9 (13,524 ratings); dense and sweet, with plum, blackberry, chocolate and raisin.
How much does it cost?
Overseas retail is US$21–24. At 20% alcohol an opened bottle keeps for two to four weeks, so a single bottle stretches over many evenings and the cost per glass is lower still.
What food goes with it?
Vivino suggests sweet desserts, mature hard cheese and blue cheese; Graham's recommends dark chocolate truffles, aged cheeses and chocolate tart. The classic way is chilled to 8–10°C, about 60 ml in a small glass, after dinner with a blue cheese such as Stilton or Roquefort, or walnuts. Poured like a red wine next to a meat dish, all you taste is sugar.
Why 1 star, and what do you think now?
In November 2019, three weeks into keeping records, I did not know Port is a fortified wine that deliberately keeps its residual sugar, and I drank it like a red — big glass, room temperature, with dinner. Under those conditions 20% alcohol and 4.9/5 sweetness registered only as 'too sweet', so I gave it 1 star. That is a record of my ignorance, not a flaw in the wine. Chilled, in small pours, with cheese, I would give it 3.5 today. The 1 star stays.
Links & sources
View on Vivino · Prices on Wine-Searcher
- Vivino — wine page and community data
- Graham's Port — official Six Grapes page (origin of the six-bunch mark, winemaking, food)
- Gus Clemens on Wine — Graham's history, Symington purchase, grapes, fortification
- The Wine Society — product data (20% alcohol, cheese pairing)
Read next
Swipe for more →
Tasted the same dayAntinori (Tenuta Montenisa), 'Marchese Antinori' Cuvée Royale Franciacorta NV
Italy · Lombardy★½☆☆☆Tasted the same dayKendall-Jackson, Vintner's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
United States · Sonoma★★★★☆Tasted the same day1865 Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc Leyda Valley 2015
Chile★★★★☆Same producerCaymus Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
United States · Napa★★★★☆Same producerDomaine Saint-Damien, Gigondas Vieilles Vignes 'La Louisiane' 2014
France · Rhône★★★½☆Same producer