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
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.
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. "Sweet."
The only 1-star rating in my entire Vivino history. A wine 13,000 people rate 3.9, the wine the Symingtons put forward as their face — and three weeks into keeping records, I gave it one star. That day I logged sixteen bottles in one go, gave Almaviva, Veuve Clicquot and Two Hands 4.5, and wrote this one down last at 1. The note is a single word. Sweet.
Looking at it now, that 1 star is not a judgment of the wine; it is a record of ignorance. I did not know what Port was. The bottle looked like a red wine and the colour was deep red, so I would have poured a red-wine measure into a red-wine glass, at red-wine temperature, probably alongside meat. Under those conditions, a liquid at 20% alcohol and 4.9 sweetness tastes like soju with syrup in it. 'Sweet' was an accurate observation; the 1 star came from reading that observation as a flaw. I did not know that leftover sugar is the definition of Port. The same day I wrote 'when I eat great champagne' next to Veuve Clicquot, so I knew how to drink Champagne as Champagne. Port, no.
This is how Port is drunk: chilled to 8–10°C, about 60 ml in a small glass, after the meal. Beside it, blue cheese or a well-aged hard cheese, dark chocolate, walnuts. Then sweetness 4.9 stops being a flaw and becomes a weapon against the salt of the cheese. An opened bottle keeps two to four weeks in the fridge, so one bottle can be ten evenings. The 79 mentions of 'cheese' in the Vivino reviews are the records of people who drank it that way.
If I scored it today I would give it 3.5 — not because it is a great wine, but because an honest Port at ₩30,000-something (about US$22–28) is rare. Of everything in this magazine, this is the bottle where my score and the world's are furthest apart, and the whole of that gap is on my side. I am not deleting the 1 star. It is the mark on the ruler showing how much I knew three weeks in.
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 |
My original note (Vivino, 2019-11-13)
“Sweet.”
Buying in Korea
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?
In Korea, ₩29,000–39,000 (about US$21–28) at Costco according to buyer reports from 2023–2025, and ₩32,000–47,000 (about US$23–34) at Dailyshot and GS Shop (September 2026). Overseas retail is US$21–24 — one of the rare wines where the Korean price is not far off. At 20% alcohol a bottle stretches over many evenings, so 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)
- Naver search — Costco and Dailyshot Korean prices and importer