The story
The company was founded by Andrew James Symington who arrived in Porto from Scotland in 1882, and initially joined Graham's. In 1891 he married Beatrice Atkinson, who was descended from several generations of port wine shippers and producers, the oldest known of which was Walter Maynard, who is known to have shipped port wine already in 1652.
By 1905, Andrew James Symington was a partner of Warre & Co and in 1912 he became a partner in Dow's Port. In 1970, the Symington family bought both Graham's and Smith Woodhouse.
In 1989, the Symington family became a partner of the Madeira Wine Company (MWC), which at that time was controlled by the Blandy family behind Blandy's, one of the Madeira companies which had formed MWC. In 1989, the Symingtons also bought Quinta do Vesuvio, which they consider the finest Port quinta from the Ferreira family, which had run into economic troubles. This quinta was used to introduce a high end single-quinta port in the Symington range.
From 1999, dry Douro wines were added to the Symington range, and in 2001, the prestige brand Chryseia was added.
From Wikipedia’s article on Symington Family Estates, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4