Portuguese wine will take 50 years to gain major international reputation

Portuguese wines will take around 50 years to achieve the same kind of international reputation that Italian wines have.

This is according to Rupert Symington, leader of the Symington Group which is the largest vineyards owner in the Douro Valley which in terms of sales only loses out to Sogrape.
In an interview with the online news source ECO, the head of the fourth generation of the Anglo-British family that started the company in 1882, said the Portuguese wine sector had potential but was inefficient in terms of production and did not have world leader brands. (Apart from Mateus)
Symington has famous port wine labels such as Graham’s, Cockburn’s, Dow’s and Warre’s and several projects in the Douro such as Quinta do Vesúvio, Quinta do Ataíde, Altano, Prats & Symington.
The head of the company which had a sales turnover of €150 million in 2021 said, “It will take 50 years to place Portuguese wines on the same level as Italian wines in terms of reputation”. However, Rupert Symington thinks that Portugal has “all the right conditions” to stand out in the sector at an international level” and has “relatively unexplored regions with the potential of producing very interesting wines”.
He admitted that while there were overseas investors which now and again bought an estate in the Douro, this was nothing compared to France or the US where “every three months there is a big deal.”