Cockburn's Port House

Cockburn’s Port (pronounced /ˈkoʊbɜrnz/ koh-burnz) is a port producer in Portugal.

It started as a family-owned business and went through 48 years of ownership by various large corporations before returning to private family ownership in 2010 as part of Symington Family Estates.

History

Cockburn’s was set up by Scotsman Robert Cockburn in 1815, who returned to Portugal after first visiting the country as a soldier fighting under Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars. It became a major brand of port in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Cockburn’s is the leading brand of port in the UK, which is the world’s largest premium port market.

In 1962, the company ceased to be a family-owned business when it was sold to Harvey’s of Bristol, which itself then became part of Allied Domecq until 2005, when Allied Domecq was taken over by Pernod Ricard, which sold Cockburn's and some other brands to the Fortune Brands holding company (the parent company of Beam Global). In 2010 Cockburn's was sold to Symington Family Estates, a family-owned business that owns over 2,300 acres of vineyards in the Douro valley (by far the largest vineyard holding in this wine region).

References

External links

• Cockburn's