Paul Symington awarded CMG by King Charles at Windsor Castle

Paul Symington of Symington Wine Estates has been awarded the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) by King Charles III at Windsor Castle, for services to UK-Portuguese relations and social and environmental sustainability.

Symington, a dual British and Portuguese national, was born just a couple of hundred metres from the Douro River and has become a pioneer of environmental and social sustainability. The Symington family has been producing Port there since 1882.

Symington Family Estates oversees four Port houses – Graham’s, Cockburn’s, Dow’s and Warre’s – as well as several Douro wine brands.

All of the company’s vineyards are sustainably managed under a minimum intervention certification, with 130 hectares farmed organically – the largest area of organic vineyard in northern Portugal.

Paul Symington said of the CMG award:

“It was an honour to meet the King, especially in the year of the 650th anniversary of the oldest unbroken alliance in the world, between Portugal and the United Kingdom. The history of Anglo-Portuguese families like mine, and of port, was significantly influenced by this and subsequent treaties which are still alive and relevant today. I am proud to receive this award that recognises my family’s generational dedication to the Douro, as well as the invaluable contribution of my colleagues with whom I have worked for many years.”

Symington Family Estates became B Corp certified in 2019, at which time it also announced its ambition to be a carbon neutral business by 2050.

“Becoming a B Corp sets us on a journey of further changes to systematically transform our activity and ensure we are responding to the big shared challenges of our time,” Rob Symington commented at the time.