Tasted it at the old Niepoort cellar, in Vila Nova de Gaia, not yet released for the market (yet). It came straight out of the demijohn
If a vintage port is a Bordeaux wine, than a Garrafeira port is a Burgundy wine. With this port I couldn’t be more the case.
Because it came straight out the bottle, you noticed a little bottle sickness on the nose. Smelled mint, and some light red fruit. The colour of the port was evolving to more brownish.
The palate of the port was young and fresh with raspberries and strawberries but still really delicate and a bit complex.
Amazing long aftertaste and wanting more of it
96/100
I would agree with the Burgundy comment as an overall way to describe these. In essence, these are LBV's aged in a large bottles for a long time. So they develop that soft side to them in addition to the complexity side. The combination makes a very interesting Port and one that is really fun to serve blind to people and hear what they guess it is. As a side...I still recall some years ago having dinner with Luis Seabra at his house, when he was still with Niepoort, and he served those of us at dinner double blind a Port and asked our thoughts. I recall telling him I loved it but was having a hard time understanding it, as it showed both a fruity side and an aged tawny side which varied on which one it showed with each sip. So I didn't know what it was when he asked. Only later to find out it was the 1977 Niepoort Garrafeira. A real treat for sure.
Eric Menchen wrote:So do you know if there are plans to bottle this for sale, and if so, how much?
Based on some dark rumours from the inner circle of the Danish port wine scene, which has relations to Dirk Niepoort, the 1987 will be released in 2022.
Some also claim that the 1983 may see light of day before the 1987.
Having resently paid half a kings ransom for the 1977 Niepoort Garrafeira bottled in 2007, I wonder if it is improving with cellaring, or will it behave more like a tawney?
Svein CE wrote:Having resently paid half a kings ransom for the 1977 Niepoort Garrafeira bottled in 2007, I wonder if it is improving with cellaring, or will it behave more like a tawney?
My experience with Garrafeiras is that they're much closer to Vintage Port than Colheita in basically all ways. As Andy said, they really only receive LBV-level wood contact and then are aged in glass (either in demi-john, or in bottle after they've been "decanted" from the demi-john). So really all the limited wood contact does is soften the profile a bit before they begin a fairly normal VP-parallel aging process.
Which is a complicated way of saying that yes, I think they improve with cellaring, so there's no need at all to worry about your 1977.
Eric Menchen wrote:So do you know if there are plans to bottle this for sale, and if so, how much?
Based on some dark rumours from the inner circle of the Danish port wine scene, which has relations to Dirk Niepoort, the 1987 will be released in 2022.
Some also claim that the 1983 may see light of day before the 1987.
Dirk confirmed htat the 1987 will be the next one. No clue on the price
Eric Menchen wrote:So do you know if there are plans to bottle this for sale, and if so, how much?
Based on some dark rumours from the inner circle of the Danish port wine scene, which has relations to Dirk Niepoort, the 1987 will be released in 2022.
Some also claim that the 1983 may see light of day before the 1987.
Dirk confirmed htat the 1987 will be the next one. No clue on the price
I am invited to a full Garrafeira tasting in 2022, since the arranger of the event is waiting for the 1987 to be released. It will be the first ever Garrafeira tasting to include 11 bottles I presume
In this article which is a review of the latest Garrafeira tasting (Roy participated) there is a mention of both the 1983 and 1987 in the last section. I hope you can google translate it in Chrome?
The specific paragraph reads:
Og om nogle år er rækken i øvrigt vokset med et par flasker mere, idet Dirk holder et skarpt øje med sine demijohns, som rummer såvel årgang 1983 som årgang 1987.
And in a few years the line up will have grown with a few more bottles, since Drik is keeping a watchful eye with his demijohns, which contains the 1983 as well as the 1987 vintage
![[cheers.gif]](./images/smilies/cheers.gif "Toast"){kind=small}
