Tag Archives: Niepoort

Portweinmesse in Leverkusen

The port wine fair in Leverkusen, organized by Axel Probst and the World of Port was as usual very well organized with many good producers of port, showing their last vintage port as well as some older samples. The fair was held on November 24, 2023.

In addition to the fair there was also a master class with the Douro Boys. The Douro Boys is a cooperation between some of the best independent producers of Douro wines and Port. It was formed in 2003, mainly in order to promote the Douro table wines that was fairly new at the time. The Douro Boys includes Quinta do Vallado, Van Zellers & Co., Quinta do Vale Meão, Quinta do Crasto and Niepoort.

At the master class we tasted the Douro Boys Vintage port 2011 and 2017 as well as a bottle from one selected vintage port from each producer. The Douro Boys Vintage Port is a blend of wines from the five produces and are produced in a very limited quantity and only on Magnums. Only 250 magnums were made of the Douro Boys Vintage Port 2011 and only 350 magnums were made of the 2017 vintage port.

For tasting notes, see the wines tasted on November 23 and 24 here.

Theis Bordeaux tasting in Copenhagen

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Theis Bordeaux tasting in Copenhagen was this year truly massive. The number of cru classified wines at the fair was significantly larger this year compared to last time. An astonishing amount of good high class chateaux and some nice Champagne, Port and other wines.

Bordeaux 2021 will most likely not be remembered as one of the greater vintages of the century. 2021 is rather medium quality. It is lighter in colour and lighter and fresher in taste than the last few years. Probably most of the wines will also mature quicker since they lack a bit of structure and body.

For Port lovers it was interesting to see that Niepoort presented some of their Ports but also some of their other wines.

Niepoort has recently changed suppliers in Denmark, and is know imported by Theis Vine. Stefano Marello, Export Director at Niepoort Vinhos says that the change of distributors was made to support the sales of Niepoort’s growing portfolio of white and red wines and in order to get access to the best restaurants in Denmark, such as Geranium and Alchemist.

As for many other Port wine companies the table wines have been growing in sales over the last couple of decades. Actually, for Niepoort, the table wine sales are bigger in both volume and value compared to Port wine.

Bordeaux 2021 – Theis Vine Prestigesmagning, Copenhagen, Denmark

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On September 8, 2022, Theis Vine will arrange a Bordeaux tasting at the Stock Exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark. The main focus for the tasting is the great chateaux of Bordeaux, with both samples from the last vintage, 2021, as well as beads of older vintages directly from the producers’ own cellars. Furthermore, a selection of some other wines from the rest of the world are also available.

We will surely be visiting this tasting and you can expect our review of the event in September.

Tickets are available at www.theis-vine.dk

In addition, for all port wine lovers, we can reveal that Theis Vine will present their new partnership with Niepoort.

Port Wine Festival with Niepoort

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This year’s festival in Copenhagen on November 6 was a success with two sold out tasting sessions, a press tasting with Dirk Niepoort, some new participating importers and a super nice new Vintage, 2015, to taste from many of the port houses.

The arranger of this festival, Forlaget Smag with Henrik Oldenburg, had invited Dirk Niepoort for a special tasting showing how traditions are maintained in the development of the Niepoort Company and its new products, all based on long experience in the business. Experience is something Dirk has a lot of, being the fifth generation in the family company, and the manager since 20 years. Dirk is a very well-known person in the port wine business, not only for the high quality of the wines coming out from Niepoort, but also for being one of the most charismatic persons with his own ways of doing things. He say he aims for perfection of the balance in the wines and talks about the importance of not trying to exaggerate the expression based on the assumption on what people may like and instead trust your own knowledge of what usually works. In his own words this gives wines with precision and elegance with a remarkable ageing potential.

The tasting showed us that Niepoort is a company that deliver not only high quality Port wine but also some of the finest table wines available from Douro. We got to taste both white and red wines with really good quality, especially interesting was the mature white Redoma Branco 1996 – showing the ageing potential in his wines, the red Poeirinho 2015 from Bairrada – a truly great red based on the Baga grape and the latest vintage, 2015, from his best red wines Batuta and Charme.

Dirk Niepoort

When it comes to Port Wines he presented the LBV 1981, an eye opener for anyone saying that LBV is for immediate consumption on release, this shows that those that are patient with wines will get a better experience. Then we got to taste two wonderful Garrafeiras, 1952 and 1977. Today, only Niepoort produces this type of Port Wine, so they are rare and sought after on the market – they are also worth looking for because they are of wonderful quality. Both of them are very elegant and complex, see tasting notes.

Finally we got to taste the Vintage Port 2015. A Vintage described by Dirk as perfect for Vintage Port and when tasting it we can only agree, because the result is very impressive, see tasting notes.

The rest of the festival we focused on the Vintage Ports, as usual, and not only Niepoort managed to deliver a great 2015, we were also very impressed by Cockburn and Quinta da Romaneira. Quinta Senhora da Ribeira and Palmer (new brand from Barão de Vilar) were also impressive. There were also some older Vintage Ports available for tasting that we liked; Warre’s Vintage 2000, Sandeman 1994 and 1975, Quinta da Cavadinha 2001, Graham’s Malvedos 2004, Quinta dos Canais 2010 and Quinta de Ervamoira 2009. There were also some nice ranges of Vintage Port from Quinta do Infantado, Quinta do Retiro Novo and Quinta da Romaneira that allowed you to see how Vintage Port develop in the bottle.

Port Wine Festival, Copenhagen

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Forlaget Smag is arranging the annual Port Wine Festival at Børsen, Copenhagen on Monday November 6. Henrik Oldenburg is as usual the man behind the Festival and we have been informed that Dirk Niepoort will be this years special guest.

There will as usual also be many more representatives from port producers during the festival.

If you have not already bought your ticket, now is the time to do so, as they are selling out fast! Find all information about participating importers and producers and buy tickets on http://forlaget-smag.dk/

The Big Fortified Tasting, London

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On April 22 we visited The Big Fortified Tasting at Church House, Westminster, London. The venue was well planned and well organized. In addition to the general tasting we attended two Master Classes; Niepoort’s Bioma Vinha Velha and Madeira.

We had the opportunity to taste several new Vintage Port as well as some old colheita port, such as Kopke 1941. In addition to port there was an impressive selection of Vintage Madeira. D’Olivieira had the widest selection of Vintage Madeira with Boal 1987, Boal 1977, Verdelho 1981, Verdelho 1986, Terrantez 1977 and Sercial 1989. In addition Justinos and Blandy was also represented with some Vintage Madeira.

In addition to Port and Madeira there were Mosacatel de Setubal, Marsala and a vast selection of Sherry’s.

The Master class “Niepoort’s Bioma Vinha Velha” offered vertical tasting of the Pisca vineyard where Dirk Niepoort took us through all the vintages released so far. The first vintage was Pisca 2007. Due to name registration issues Niepoort had to change names to Bioma, which is the current name. The following wines were Bioma 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013. In addition Dirk Niepoort let us try cask samples of the two batches of port that will be mixed to make the coming vintage 2015.

The Madeira Master class “A Wide Range of Unique Wines” with The Madeira Wine Institute and Rui Falcao gave a very good overview of Madeira and the new legislation.

Author: Jörgen

Summer with no Port

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Stefan and Sten at Schloss Gobelsburg.

We have terrible summer weather in Sweden this year and we also have a new record in the family. We were not drinking Vintage Port for a whole month exactly! The reason is simple. We have been on vacation in Franken, Germany and Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), Austria. We had some very nice tastings in Würzburg at the Burgerspital, Juliusspital and Staatlicher Hofkeller. In Austria we were at tastings in Winzer Krems, Aufreiter’s, Schloss Gobelsburg Schlosskellerei, Domäne Wachau and a few others. The tastings were especially good at Gobelsburg and Domäne Wachau. We were very surprised to see some Vintage Ports from Niepoort for sale at Schloss Gobelsburg. It turns out that Dirk Niepoort is a friend to the manager of Schloss Gobelsburg. We tasted Wonderful wines of Grüner Veltliner and Riesling but also some red table wines. However, we also found an Austrian “port wine” in a wine shop in Salzburg, which we just had to taste and it was terrible indeed!

Some Smaragd quality wines tasted at Domäne Wachau

The last couple of weeks have been more normal for us, with some new Vintage Ports tasted and added to the page. Now we are going to Skagen in Denmark for a celebration week and we will write about the wines we taste there in about 2 weeks. Hope you have better weather than we have!