1997 Niepoort Vintage Port

[Luc Gauthier]

Opened a ' 97 Niepoort as per theme .
After removing the seal , there definite signs of seepage .
The cork smelled lickorice .
Any signs of fruit were gone .
Even after several hours of decanting , the imbalance I noticed upon opening was ever present .
The alcool was showing more and the finish was short . 13/20
The only bright spot , was the fact that my 7 yr old daughter decanted her 1st bottle of Port
To see the smile on her face when she completed pouring the wine steadily and then without asking ,
smelled the carafe ( As If she'd been doing It all her life ) .
All is not lost !!

[Kurt Wieneke]

Sorry to hear about the ever-controversial Ni97 weeper. This is bacterial spoilage in my opinion, an active process going on inside 'some bottles' of Ni97 that drives the seepage outward. But for your daughter, I send congrats

[Roy Hersh]

Daughter's decanting our Port, rocks. Luc, just think when you and I are old (well, oldER ... like in 25 years) it will be very nice to have well-trained and steady handed daughters to do the decanting. Mine will only be 31 by that time and I may even let her start dating by then.

Sorry to hear about the bad bottle. I am sure you've read here, when Dirk came forth and told the whole story about what went wrong with his 1997s and being over-filled that caused the seepage in most cases. Very strangely, I have never owned a leaker from his '97s. Then again, my misfortune with '83 Cockburn has surely made up for that minute stroke of good fortune.