1992 Niepoort Vintage Port

[Glenn E.]

This taste is what remains of a bottle that Roy opened. I believe it was opened about 8 hours ago, and from what Roy told me that's probably about the right amount of time in the decanter.

The color is dark, but not quite to purple. It has a firm, almost brick color out near the rim which fades to red right at the edge.

The nose has a fair amount of VA in it that almost covers up everything else. In fact now that I've identified it, it does cover up everything else.

There's a flavor that tastes like what VA smells like. It's also a little bit spicy like a Tempranillo, but overlayed with some smooth refined sugar. There's some heat, too, which carries into the finish. The refined sugar is balanced by tannins that are firm but not too strong.

The finish is quite long and evolves slowly. There's some grape skin hiding in there, and every once in a while I get a faint hit of bread. Sourdough, but not a strong one.

This drinks very well right now for a teenager. I would worry that too much more age might cause the tannins to retreat and be overpowered by the sugary feel, which would result in something more velvety or silky but which would lack depth. I'd say drink this one now or within 10 years.

[Roy Hersh]

Interesting impression. It was decanted at 1 p.m. this afternoon. I've tasted it several times today, about an ounce at a time and will be drinking it over the next two hours with more evaluation and enjoyment to follow. Thanks for your note Glenn!

[Glenn E.]

Well I'm a little worried that my notes on this one and the 1970 Taylor Fladgate are... well,"influenced" by the fact that I drank more port in one day yesterday than ever before! I'm flying to San Diego later this afternoon and "needed" to finish off a couple of things before leaving.

I'd already had a glass of the 1985 Smith Woodhouse before you called, and I had a glass of the Taylor Fladgate before going to a friend's house for dinner. When I returned after dinner I sat down to do the tastings and had 2 glasses of the Niepoort, another glass of the Taylor Fladgate, and 2 more glasses of the Smith Woodhouse.

So... my impressions may be a little fuzzy! I did sleep very well last night, though.

[Roy Hersh]

Just imagine what having 225 glasses of Port/Douro wines during the Harvest Trip must be like. We ALL sleep very well during the trip!

Roy

[Ronald Wortel]

The VA worries me a bit here. Did it trouble you as well Roy?

[Andy Velebil]

The VA worries me a bit here. Did it trouble you as well Roy?

There has been some discussion about periodic VA that has reared its ugly head in some Niepoort Ports. IIRC, Dirk has stated this has been an occassional problem since the early/mid 1980's and they are not sure what has been causing . As it seems to be bottle specific even within the same case.

[Roy Hersh]

My experience was less than enthusiastic. I felt the wine was disjointed on the palate and really lacking aromatically with VA, heat and quite unpleasant. I have some in Mags but just one more in 750 and will wait to try it again, but hope that it shows better than this particular bottle I opened. Yikes! Not terrible, but certainly nothing I would want to drink more than a few sips of.

[Ronald Wortel]

The VA worries me a bit here. Did it trouble you as well Roy?

There has been some discussion about periodic VA that has reared its ugly head in some Niepoort Ports. IIRC, Dirk has stated this has been an occassional problem since the early/mid 1980's and they are not sure what has been causing . As it seems to be bottle specific even within the same case.

Yes, I've heard about that. And not too long ago I had a tainted bottle of Niepoort 1994. It is worrying, and I just hope that my other bottles are ok.

[Andy Velebil]

This is What Dirk Nirpoort wrote publicly in January of this year, when talk about VA came up in the 1997 VP's. I've edited out some things that are not needed (such as names, email address, and content not related to the question at hand) and those are denoted by XXXX...

dear all,

thank you for the kind words about me as a person.
but the issue is not me but niepoort and in this case the vintage 1997.
i have answered XXXX and assume that he will give you my answer.
on thing for sure.
OFF COURSE I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT ANY PROBLEM WHEN THIS WINE WAS BOTTLED
i have heard (not only now but already a few years ago) about some problems with bottles having va. i have experienced it twice myself.
but by coincidence i was served a bottle of vintage 1997 niepoort just 3 days ago and found that the wine was good (it didn t show great ...it is closed and ininteresting and not really expressiv....but so did the fonseca which i had two days ago. it did not show any signs of being a outrageously fantastic wine at this stage. but funny stages of the vintage ports are well know to all of you).
i have been trying to find out about this problem. this problem started with us with the vintage 1985. but than again it depends on the bottle...i ve had fantastic bottles of our 1985.... and it is a problem that seems to be related to a malolactic bacteria which seems to survive at hight alcool when the ph of the wine is high and the sulphur low.but then again: why some bottles and others not?????

since we don t understand the problem we haven t done anything about it. XXXX........