Tributes paid to Port industry veteran, Jim Reader
Jim Reader, the former head of Cockburn’s Port who was a widely respected member of the port industry in his adopted Portugal, died at home in Oporto at the age of 75.
Reader, who died on Sunday 14 June at the age of 75, was a well-respected figure in the port industry, widely liked for his affability and his passion for both his adopted country and its wines.
Born in North Yorkshire, Reader moved to Portugal in 1980 with Allied Breweries, who owned the UK’s leading Port brand Cockburn’s Port at the time. He joined the company as a quality control manager, having been awarded a PhD at Strathclyde University after his original microbiology degree at the University of East Anglia.
He rose through the ranks during his time at Cockburns, becoming production director and eventually general manager of Cockburn’s before retiring in 2006, when the company was acquired by the Symington family. However he continued to serve on the influential Tasting Commission of the Port and Douro Wine Institute which verifies the quality of all Port Wines and undertook part-time consultancy work with Port Shipper C de Silva. He formed part of the court of the Confraria do Vinho do Porto and was an active member of the Factory House where he served as an independent auditor in recent years.
His 40-year role in the industry was honoured in July 2025, when he was one of 40 individuals and organisations honoured by the Universidade Católica Escola Superior de Biotecnologia for their long-standing contribution to Port.
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He was a highly popular figure in the Port trade, both in the Douro wine region and in Vila Nova de Gaia, famed for this sense of humour. On learning that several other leading houses were preparing to ‘declare’ during discussions of possible Vintage Port declaration with another Port producer, he paused before noting that ‘our wines are getting better as we speak.’
Outside of port, his interests included – he not only played in a local band but made his own instruments – hill-walking in the Peneda-Gerês National Park in northern Portugal, and restoring his collection of vintage motorbikes and his wife’s Morris Minor van.
His funeral on 17 June on attended by large number of people from every walk of life in the Douro and Gaia, and 350 people observed a minute’s silence in his memory at the annual Enthroning Ceremony of the Port Wine Confraria at the Palacio de Bolsa on Saturday (27 June).
Reader is survived by his wife Stephanie, his children Daniel and Sarah and his grandson Nicholas.
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