For The Love Of Port

This is one of several bottles of this port that I purchased in 1996 and has been stored in good conditions since. The cork came out in one piece and seemed to be in good condition. It's now been in the decanter for 24+ hours.

The color is a medium red/burgundy with some browning on the rim. When I sampled this just after decanting there was a ton of VA on the nose and not much else. Unfortunately, it hasn't subsided. There's a little bit of fruit there, maybe grape candy, but the paint thinner aromas dominate. The palate isn't showing much better as there is some initial sweetness but not much fruit, and the midpalate just disappears leaving a hot and spirity finish. When I last drank this 4 or 5 years ago it seemed fairly disjointed but not as flawed as this bottle. N/R - Tasted 1/11

I bought a case of this from Rare Wine Company in the 90's for my son's birth year. We have opened one or two bottles wich have been very good. It might be time to open one to see how it is doing.

We are frozen in here, expecting 6 degrees tonight. I opened a bottle of this 1992 Niepoort. Upon opening lots of ripe , dark berry , fruit, not too hot. 8 hours later no heat, nice fruit, nice bouquet, nice spicy notes, great finish. You must have had a flawed bottle.

As best as I can recall I've only had this once a few years ago, from a magnum. I was a good bottle but I thought it would be better in the mid term. That said it could have been an off bottle or in a funky phase at the time as I have no other experience to compare it to.

I have one bottle left but I don't plan to open it for quite a while so I guess I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope it turns out better than this one did. The first time I drank the Niepoort '92 it was only in bottle a few years and I found it very impressive. I've had a worse experience with each successive bottle since. I guess this is just a streak of bad luck?...

I am wondering if you're not decanting these Colheitas toooooo long? Might that strip some freshness and life out of 'em ... possibly.

Roy Hersh wrote:I am wondering if you're not decanting these Colheitas toooooo long? Might that strip some freshness and life out of 'em ... possibly.

This was actually the VP, not the Colheita. Just for the record, I did drink some the first night and found the VA really offensive. I hoped leaving it in the decanter overnight might bring some improvement, but alas...

Lamont Huxley wrote:

Roy Hersh wrote:I am wondering if you're not decanting these Colheitas toooooo long? Might that strip some freshness and life out of 'em ... possibly.

This was actually the VP, not the Colheita. Just for the record, I did drink some the first night and found the VA really offensive. I hoped leaving it in the decanter overnight might bring some improvement, but alas...

VP, Colheita, same difference All kidding aside, Niepoort has had issues with VA for a number of years and which seemed to peak in the 1990's. Dirk has been quite open about this and the last time I heard him speak about the issue he stated he didn't know what was causing it. I haven't experienced or heard of VA issues from about 2000 onward so hopefully the issue was solved.

Andy Velebil wrote:

Lamont Huxley wrote:

Roy Hersh wrote:I am wondering if you're not decanting these Colheitas toooooo long? Might that strip some freshness and life out of 'em ... possibly.

This was actually the VP, not the Colheita. Just for the record, I did drink some the first night and found the VA really offensive. I hoped leaving it in the decanter overnight might bring some improvement, but alas...

VP, Colheita, same difference All kidding aside, Niepoort has had issues with VA for a number of years and which seemed to peak in the 1990's. Dirk has been quite open about this and the last time I heard him speak about the issue he stated he didn't know what was causing it. I haven't experienced or heard of VA issues from about 2000 onward so hopefully the issue was solved.

I had a similar experience with a bottle of the '97 a few years ago as well. I'll just have to hope that the others I still have don't fall victim to this fatal flaw...

1997 was one of the vintages that is well known to have a lot of VA issues. Keep your fingers crossed on your remaining bottles.

Andy Velebil wrote:1997 was one of the vintages that is well known to have a lot of VA issues. Keep your fingers crossed on your remaining bottles.

But when they're good, they're really good.

Yeah, like the 1983 Cockburn's. I prefer the lottery.