Cockburn

Cockburn Smithes & C:a

The company was founded in Oporto in 1815 by Robert Cockburn, younger brother of a famous Scottish judge Henry, Lord Cockburn, established the company. He founded the company Cockburn, Wauchope & Co with a good friend, George Wauchope. They started dealing with wine, dried cod and oil but soon discarded the smelly secondary products and fully concentrated in wine i.e. Port. He married Mary Duff. The same Mary Duff whom Lord Byron had worshipped in verse and prose when he was a young romantic man and long before being world famous. Mary has a good taste (for Port?) and bore him two sons, Archibald and Alexander. In 1828 Captain William Greig joined the company and now it was renamed Cockburn, Wauchope & Greig. A few years later the three became four partners when another captain and later admiral, Hugh Dunlop, joined the company. He contributed not with capital but married Robert Cockburn’s sister. Robert’s two sons, Archibald and Alexander opened a London office in 1830. When Robert died in 1854 Archibald stayed in London and Alexander went to Oporto. Shortly after taking over in 1854, two other brothers became partners, Henry and John Tatham Smithes and they renamed the house to Cockburn & Smithes. John married Eleonor Cobb, sister to the new London-based partner Charles Davidson Cobb and there was now a Cobb in the firm until 1999 when Peter M. Cobb left the company. The three families have played a key role in the company's development; the Cockburn, the Smithes and the Cobb.

Cockburn has also managed and sold the wine of Quinta da Eira Velha owned by the Newman family as a single quinta port but under the Martinez label.

In 1962 Cockburn Smithes was bought by the British wine merchant Harvey's of Bristol who had bought the company of Martinez the year before, 1961. A few years later, in 1966, Harvey's, as thus, Cockburn and Martinez, was bought by Showerings, Vine Products and Whiteways Ltd (SVPW), which was bought by Allied Breweries in 1968 with subsequent name changes to Allied-Lyons PLC in 1981 and to Allied Domecq PLC in 1994.

Following an agreement with the Newman family in 1979, Cockburn managed Quinta da Eira Velha on behalf of the Newman family and sold the wine. Quinta da Eira Velha was marketed as a single quinta wine; the vintage of 1978 under the Cockburn brand and thereafter under the Martinez label until the vintage of 2000.

In 2005, a time of turmoil started for Cockburn. The owner, Allied Domecq, was taken over by Pernod Ricard SA who then immediately sold off some of the acquired brands, including Cockburn, Martinez and Harvey's, to Beam Inc within the Fortune Brands group. Beam had not much experience in making fortified wine and consequently, the offer of the Symington family to make the Cockburn wines for them was welcomed. In 2006 the Symingtons took over all the vineyards and the lodges of Cockburn, but Beam retained the brand and the company name. In 2010 Symington was allowed to buy the remaining parts of the Cockburn company and the transfer was completed.

The Cockburn family crest, a cockerel on a coronet, has become a symbol of the company and appears on all bottles of Cockburn's Port throughout the world.

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