Prats & Symington

Corridor footprint

Prats & Symington was created in 1999 to answer a question the Douro was only starting to ask: could the region’s port grapes make a world-class dry red? The Symington family, the largest vineyard owner in the Douro and the house behind Graham’s, Dow’s, Warre’s and Cockburn’s, brought the land; Bruno Prats, who had run Château Cos d’Estournel in Saint-Estèphe, brought the Bordeaux winemaking discipline. The first Chryseia vintage was 2000, made from Touriga Nacional and Touriga Franca, and the company later took over Quinta de Roriz, one of the oldest named quintas in the Douro, where its winery now stands, adding Quinta da Perdiz as a second vineyard source. The company is registered as Prats & Symington Lda (NIF 504882341) at Quinta de Roriz, Ervedosa do Douro.

In the Nordics the wines travel through Sweden’s monopoly. Systembolaget added Chryseia 2022 (art. 7108601, SEK 849) and the second wine Prazo de Roriz 2021 (art. 7544901, SEK 179) to its order range in October 2024, both imported by Ward Wines AB, the Stockholm importer that also handles Graham’s ports for the Symington group. The Symington family’s wider Nordic listings, from Graham’s and Dow’s ports to Altano and Vale do Bomfim, are covered in the separate Symington Family Estates profile.

Why this matters for the corridor

Chryseia is the corridor’s reference point for premium Douro reds in the Nordic monopolies: a Bordeaux-Douro joint venture whose flagship sits at the top of Systembolaget’s Portuguese price ladder alongside vintage ports, and whose second wine gives Swedish buyers an entry at under SEK 200. It shows that Portuguese still wine can command Nordic shelf space on quality rather than volume, the segment Portuguese exporters most need to grow.