1999 Niepoort Late Bottled Vintage

[Bradley Bogdan]

Decanted 6 hours

Consumed over 4 days, decided to pull this out to get a preview of what my other bottle might be like at the old LBV tasting coming up in Seattle.

The nose and palate both present as reasonably closed on the first day, surprising as this is supposed to be a more approachable style of VP from a good, but not great or generally declared year. By day two, things open up and the wine starts singing.

The nose is full of cinnamon, chocolate, dark juicy fruits. The palate is more of the same, with good structure in both acid and tannin terms. This is definitely a full bodied port, not at all shy about being big and ripe, but still well balanced. Its reasonably complex, again with lots of fruit, chocolate and some baking spices filling out its impressive density. This was youthful enough to drink very nicely over through day 4, and even showed well in a half full glass left out over night into day 4 (No, it wasn't my glass that was abandoned half full, a guest that apparently doesn't like delicious port decided to leave it). All of this may sound flat, but really left me very impressed and pleased with this port. Its delicious, will continue to age positively for at least another 5-10 years, and has wonderful concentration and balance.

93 Pts

PS Roy, when the planning for the old LBV tasting begins, I think this needs at least a good 10-12 hour decant to show its best.