For The Love Of Port

Licorice, raspberry, cinnamon, sweet chocolate, and vanilla. This showed very sweet, with largely integrated tannins and pleasing alcohol. With considerably less depth and structure than previous examples, this half-bottle was ready right now. 92 points.

Good to hear about 2000's starting to soften up. I think I will leave mine sleeping for awhile longer.

Kurt Wieneke wrote:I think I will leave mine sleeping for awhile longer.

Same here. Most of the better 2000 VP's I've had in the past couple years were showing signs of closing up. So best to leave them till they come out of their slumber. Something I suspect is the case based on reading Tom's note on this latest bottle.

I think "closed" would be a too charitable description of this bottle. It definitely showed considerably less structure and aging potential than previously, despite being very nice drinking, quite generous and approachable. I was somewhat surprised, given my early impressions that this could be a classic, cellarworthy VP. Could be an off bottle, but it could be this just isn't going to live up to my expectations as it ages. I may need to revisit this one before too long...

Tom,

Very possible it could have been an off-bottle. But I'm still leaning toward it just being closed up and not in a good place right now. This is one of the top of the heap for 2000's and like I mentioned is probably just shut down. When VP closes up, which seems to start around the 6-7 year mark, it can shut down very hard and leave the Port tasting simple, lean, and not very enjoyable. So don't write this one off just yet, just be patient and give it many years to develop. I'm sure you'll be greatly rewarded for doing so.

And while on the subject of 2000's, a number of 2003's I've had in the past year and a half have shown signs of also closing down. For example, the 2003 Quinta do Noval has already shut down very hard and isn't in a pleasant place to drink at the moment.

The 2000 Niepoort is one of my favorite Ports of the vintage. It was an incredible infant which showed better than practically every one of its peers ... in several evaluations. Although your bottle may not have shown well at this moment, I can assure you there is zero chance that the structure changed so dramatically within its first decade. This is definitively ... a very long lived wine in its youth. I'd stake my reputation on that statement.